


Planatery (Go!)

by 0urhappygirl500



Category: Gravity Falls, Homestuck
Genre: I love Gravity Falls characters interacting with Homestuck characters, Multi, aparently
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-09-15 10:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 29
Words: 79,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9230330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0urhappygirl500/pseuds/0urhappygirl500
Summary: The Heir Of Breath's adventure truly starts after the credits where he must listen to the Heart and the Mind.A little something I've been thinking about since the credits and I've finally given up and started writing it.





	1. Prologue

We’ve all heard stories about the creators.

The four Hero’s, the four Nobles and of course the original twelve gods, the Zodiac. 

Who can forget the story of the Cherubs? That taught us about the duality of good an evil.

There are even stories of twelve other gods even more ancient than even the Zodiac however little is known about their tale.

Ever since childhood we were told the story of these gods and how they created the entire universe and us.

We were told how they banded together to defeat a great evil known as the Lord of Time who’s defeat was only made possible through the inspiration of his sister, the teller of stories, The Muse of Space.

We were told how they defeated all who would be unjust to create a world of peace, a world without war, a world where Troll, Human, Carapacian or even Consort could live in peace and harmony. 

How they suffered through countless trials and hardships simply to bring us all into existence. So that we may feel the suns warmth and the moons glow.

But that was not all we were told…

We were told of how those of the Zodiac were born of a warlike world, how they bickered and betrayed and killed each other out of fear and hate. 

We were told how the Creators incited wars between Kingdoms of legend Prospit and Derse. We were told of how the Hero’s destroyed their world and guardians to play a game.

We were told of how powerful the Creators were, they had the power to destroy worlds, suns and universes. 

They had the power to use time itself as a weapon, to create something out of nothing, to see the consequence of any action, to steal luck, to revive the dead, the rip the soul from your very being, to reduce a planet to the size of a small stone or perhaps for the most powerful of them all rewrite existence itself.

And we were all told a truth over and over throughout these stories; these gods created us and this universe and one day they would return to claim what they created.

While there were some that drew excitement and wonder from these stories hoping to live to see the creators return in all their ‘glory’ there were others who realized the truth.

That those of this world were very small in the grander scheme of things, that there were higher powers out there that created us for their own amusement.

The creators are said to have destroyed their own worlds and multiple universes for the sake of the game, if they should play that game again what would happen to those of this world?

What is to stop the creators from destroying us all on a whim, when they created this world did they live there peacefully to nurture what they had created?

No, they left so that we might prepare the world for them.

For unlike what the stories would have you believe we exist for the sake of the Creators.

If the Creators were to become hostile to us or if they were to grow board of us there would be nothing anyone could do to stop them destroying us all. The Creators are said to have powers beyond comprehension, how could mere mortals possibly hope to defend themselves?

So as time went on while there were those that would foolishly believe that dedicating their lives to preparing for the creators arrival and serving them would grant safety to this world there were others who began to prepare to defend themselves.

Unlocking every truth and secret they could about the Creators these brave souls rose above to great strength, however it was impossible to be as great as a creator, to reach that peak, to become ‘God Tier’.

Our strength could never defeat the gods and so we began to prepare in a different way.

Eventually as the stories promised the creators did return.

The Seer of Mind would travel back to the land of the dead to search for the Thief of Light.

But what of the others? 

They claimed themselves as monarchs over us each taking land for themselves, the Seer of Light and the Sylph of Space took over the raising of the troll kinds young, the Maid of Life built an empire for herself arguably gaining the most influence in our world…

And oh how the common people cheered and celebrated the Creators return and all that they did.

But there were those of us that knew better, those of us who have been preparing for millennia. 

Eventually the creators would grow board of our world and then we would be thrown away and the Creators game would start anew.

They might act like us and look like us but we all knew they were above us. 

For now they immersed themselves in our world enjoying their position as rulers but how long would that last?

One Creator already showed no interest in our world.

The Heir of Breath, the leader of them all.

Unlike the others he did not busy himself with our world…

In the stories he was the tool that the creators used to succeed, he was their key to victory, which would fight and die for them time and time again and rewrite everything that could be written until his ‘friends’ got the ending they desired.

We perceived him as waiting for the Creators to grow board of this world; we knew they would use him to begin the end.

Our strength could never defeat the gods but it was possible to weaken them.

Our strength could never defeat all the gods but perhaps we could defeat one.

If we could not stop the Gods we could take away that which they used as their tool to create their will. 

We could take away their Heir of Breath.

For centuries we have been preparing for this day, we have every power available to us that Human or Troll could possibly have. We are ready today, we shall succeed today or we shall never succeed and all shall be doomed.

Today is the thirteenth of April, a holy day.

Today marks the fourth year in which the creators returned to this world.

Today is the day the mortals begin to take the universe back from the Gods.

The Heir of Breath stands in his room…

\---

John Egbert woke up to the sound of something hitting his bedroom window, like something small was being thrown at it. For a second he thought it might be hail or something like that hitting his window as it fell but the tap, tap, tapping on his window was too irregular for that.

He opened one eye and in the corner of it he could see a small pebble hitting the window.

Okay that was kind of weird, was Dave trying to mess with him?

If that's what was happening that would make no sense because one, all John’s friends knew he was the pranking master only Jane could hope to go up against him. And two, he doubted Dave would come without Jade and Jade had a key.

Heck Dave had a key so did Rose and Karkat so if they wanted to come wish him happy birthday or whatever they could just come in.

Was it still his birthday? It looked pretty dark outside.

John reached for his phone to check the time, only to find it smashed.

Oh yeah that’s right he’d kind of smashed his phone hadn’t he? He found himself cursing that annoying jerk that was Callie’s brother under his breath for what had to be a bunch of times now.

A while back Callie’s brother somehow managed to start contacting him and had basically been harassing him trying to get into a fight or something?

Whatever John had better things to do than get into a fight with that garbage.

He’d smashed his phone in a fit of anger today though because he wasn’t in the mood to deal with that stuff today.

Not because it was his birthday or anything, that had stopped being that big of a deal a while ago. Today was practically no different than any other; he was just feeling a bit exhausted…

So after smashing his phone he took a nap.

Tap! Another pebble hit his window

With a sigh John got up to see what was going on, he’d need to get a new phone later. Probably tell the others what happened whenever they had the time; he hadn’t told them about Caliborn yet which is probably something he should do.

But the game was over so it wasn’t like there was anything that could put them all in danger.

Looking out of his window John saw… a kid?

She seemed to notice him staring as she waved at him and motioned him to come down.

Feeling maybe a little curious John opened his window and flew down to the yard where the girl who had been throwing stuff at his house was waiting. He’d barely landed when the girl shrieked in excitement.

“Oh my gosh! I can’t believe it’s really you! I can’t believe I’m this close to the Heir of Breath!” the kid said practically jumping up and down.

Oh… Okay he had some kind of idea of what might be going on; when they first arrived in their world after civilization had formed they were kind of treated like celebrities. Even after four years a lot of people acted excited around them.

Well that’s what John had heard from they others, they did more things than him and went out a bit more… He just didn’t really have anything he wanted to do himself.

Getting a good look at the kid, she appeared around twelve maybe thirteen, she had blonde straight hair like Rose’s that was almost as long as Jade’s with a pair of large glasses that also reminded him of Jade. If he’d had to describe her it would be a bit of a mix of two of his best friends.

She’d been looking at him in expectation for a while so John lowered himself a bit so he was eye level and the kid took this as a prompt to introduce herself.

“It’s an honor to actually meet you my Heir, my name is Lily Nettle. This might sound strange but I’ve been looking forward to this night for a long time!” the kid, Lily apparently, said and John felt himself giving a slight smile in response.

“Well it’s an honor to meet you too Lily! But isn’t it rather late for you to be out?” He asked as she looked at him with slight amusement.

Somewhere in the back of his head he could feel a warning siren go off.

“It’s only 10:25 my Heir! And from a trolls point of view it would be early,” she said as he nodded trying to push down the feeling that something was wrong.

“Maybe but you don’t look like a troll,” John said jokingly as Lily’s smile got wider.

“Oh I know it’s late in a sense but it was incredibly important to see you! After all I have a gift for you” Lily said opening up a cake box she had next to her to reveal a birthday cake with two candle’s that said one and three respectively.

It took John a moment to process because honestly a kid showing up with a cake was kind of well he hadn’t expected anything like that to happen today.

“Um… Thank you for the cake but my thirteenth birthday was a while ago…” he said swallowing down the unpleasant feeling that rose up as he said that.

His thirteenth birthday… the day they played the game…

“Oh I know that silly! But thirteen is a special number for you…” Lily responded darkly as she lit the candle.

There was no ignoring the alarm bells sounding in his head right now and John found himself taking an unconscious step back as memories of the game played at the back of his mind.

“Don’t you think blowing out the candles on your birthday one last time would be a nice way to end things?” Lily asked holding up the cake a condescending smile on her face.

“The end of what?” John asked back hesitantly, after four years and probably not expecting to have to fight again he was rusty because he was only just realizing that they were being watched.

“You! This is the last day you will remain yourself,” Lily explained simply as the first bullet was fired.

It was easily dodged but more bullets started heading towards him, John could spot the snipers on multiple rooftops but it was simple enough to blow them away. Not off the roofs though, he didn’t really want to hurt anyone just yet. 

The snipers had lost their baring’s as more close combat fighters started to appear; both trolls and humans but with a bit of wind manipulation John made it hard for them to even get close.

Over the sound of the roaring wind he could hear Lily laugh, she was standing off to the side holding the cake and despite the winds the candle was miraculously still lit.

“They knew we wouldn’t be able to beat you in an ordinary fight!” Lily yelled over the wind as John dodged another attack.

Around him he could see containers being placed, opening up to reveal… aspects?

Glowing in three separate large glass containers was glowing energy in the shape of the time aspect, the light aspect and the mind aspect.

Lily began to monologue as large cords were attached to the base of each container the other end of the cords being attached to what could only be described as gauntlets being worn by some of his attackers.

“Yes even we mere mortals can harness a fraction of the power of the gods, the power of aspects. I’m so happy I get to witness this event! I’m lucky they figured a child was the best way to draw you out!” Lily monologued as eight adult cobalt trolls appeared behind her.

Both the aspects and the gauntlets began to glow as he felt the trolls presence in his mind, it reminded him of the times in the past when Vriska had put him to sleep but this was much more powerful.

“On your birthday you will be reborn my Heir as this worlds savior…” someone seemingly far away said as the haze of unconsciousness enveloped him.

The last thing John saw was candles on a birthday cake going out.


	2. Welcome to Gravity Falls

John Egbert felt like he was definitely going to die.

They were going to kill him.

Okay so maybe this hadn’t been his best idea, maybe he could have handled this better. But it didn’t change the fact that he was so, so screwed right now.

He couldn’t believe he was going to die at the young age of 13.

He turned right as he ran through the hall, wow really running through the hall on his first day. Clearly he wasn’t going to be known as a rule-abiding student.

He skidded to a halt when he came across a dead end. Oh that’s just perfect. He should have known better to think he could get away when he didn’t even know his way around the school yet.

“Nowhere to run!” a voice called behind him as the huge ‘class mate’ and the guy’s friends cornered him, maybe he could slip pass them and nope they grabbed the back of his shirt when he tried and the main guy that had been after him started pulling him along.

Wow this guy was strong, how were they even supposed to be in the same grade? And the guy was still covered with water. John smirked a little at that despite the situation because wow you think the guy would have dried off a little chasing after him.

So maybe putting a bucket of water on top of a door on his first day wasn’t his best move.

But really it’s not like he had been planning to hit what he’s thinking might be the school bully with it, he was planning to just play a small prank establish himself as a pranking master and maybe make some friends like that.

Like that would be a cool thing right?

Instead this guy got hit and now John was regretting every decision he has ever made.

“Come on it was just a prank!” he called while trying to get out of the other guys grasp.

It was no use though, this guy was strong.

Though trolls usually were, especially the indigo-blooded ones.

“Think you’re funny, huh?” the guy said as they got closer to a row of lockers.

“Um no, I’m hilarious” it might not have been the best thing to say but it’s become apparent that today is not his day for making good decisions.

“Did you see how hard that girl in the back laughed?” John asked jokingly.

“Shut up!” the guy said before shoving him into a locker and slamming the door shut.

It didn’t take long for the guys who had been after him to leave muttering and complaining about having to deal with him as they left.

Once he was sure that they had gone he sighed and slumped down to the lockers floor.

“So much for a good first impression” he lamented, he knew he’d never been the most popular guy but he thought that this was a chance for him to make some friends.

It was at that moment the locker door opened.

The person who opened the door was funnily enough someone he had just mentioned while he was getting thrown in the locker.

When the bucket of water had landed on the bullies’ head there had been a deathly silence from nearly all the students in the class. All except one; a girl in a strawberry pink sweater with a shooting star on it sitting at the back had burst into laughter.

And here she was now standing in front of him having opened the locker door.

“Yes! I had a feeling it would be this one, I’m a genius!” the girl said to herself in an excited tone.

If he was the protagonist of a cool story he might have said something cool or witty or cleaver or something. Instead what came out of his mouth was “um…” great going Egbert, really setting yourself up as a charismatic guy.

However as lame as anyone might think it was it got the girls attention, she looked down where he was practically sitting on the locker floor and gave him a big smile.

She had rainbow colored braces, which had to be one of the coolest things ever.

“Hey there you’re the new kid right? I’m Mabel! Mabel Pines!” she introduced herself, holding out her hand. “John Egbert” was his reply as he took her hand and she helped him out of the locker.

“That was really funny what you did with the bucket” she said causing him to grin “thank you, no one appreciates the pranking arts anymore!” he said in a fake sad voice causing her to laugh.

“It’s such a travesty, what will become of our generation?” she added dramatically and now it was his turn to laugh.

“Clearly we are all doomed unless I and other brave souls keep the pranking arts alive,” he said as she laughed.

“Well allow me to aid you on your quest oh great hero!” Mabel joked dramatically giving an exaggerated bow for effect.

John felt his grin grow wider.

“I hate to brag, but I’m pretty good at practical jokes myself!” Mabel declared with a wink.

John found himself laughing slightly “Oh well I’ll have to see this sometime, but I warn you I doubt you’ll be able to beat me in a battle of pranks I am a pranking master” he said as Mabel blew a raspberry at him.

“What? I’m sure I could do great!” she said as she closed the locker that he had been in.

“So is that your locker or something?” John asked curiously.

“Nah, these lockers are just super easy to open” she explained opening another locker near them as if in demonstration and peering inside.

“Oh candy bar!” Mabel declared taking a bar of chocolate from the locker and putting it in her backpack “I’ll save you for later” she said closing the bag.

“Um… that wasn’t your locker either was it?” John asked hesitantly trying not to think about the fact that this girl might regularly break into lockers to steal snacks.

After all she had helped him, so he really shouldn’t judge.

“Nah, but it was the locker of the jerk who threw you in that other locker” Mabel explained and oh that was okay then he guesses.

“Oh well, I guess he doesn’t deserve candy then but since I was the one thrown in the locker I think I should get some of that chocolate bar” John joked as Mabel’s smile got even wider before she started laughing.

“Hmm, I’ll think about it but you should know better than to try and come between a girl and her candy! And Kennik’s candy tastes extra sweet, I know because I usually take some whenever he and his pals would throw Dipper in a locker” Mabel stated.

Before John had the chance to ask who Dipper was the bell rang for the next period.

“Boo! Looks like class is starting soon. Hey what’s your next class?” she asked him, it took him a few seconds of fumbling around with his backpack to get the timetable he’d been given out.

The second he did Mabel snatched the timetable and started looking at it.

“Hmm… looks like you have math right about now,” she said as she handed the timetable back to him.

“It’s actually pretty close to my next class come on I’ll show you.” Mabel said as she started walking down the hall making a gesture for him to follow.

They chatted as they walked; apparently Mabel had a bunch of classes with him, which made him kind of excited. Anyone who could enjoy a good prank was golden in his books.

Hmm, he wondered if they could ever pull off a prank together.

John ended up being a little late to his next class, but luckily the teacher was understanding since he was new and didn’t know his way around yet. Mabel was even given a note for her class saying she was late because she was helping a new student, which was great because he’d feel bad, if she got into trouble while helping him.

The jerk that stuffed him in a locker was also in this class with him though; John couldn’t but smirk while he was taking his seat at a surprised look spread on the guys face probably at the fact that John was no longer in a locker.

He was lucky Mabel had decided to help him; maybe he had made a good first impression on at least one person after all.

\---

Mabel Pines had found another one of her people she just knew it!

She knew that sometimes she could be a bit much to handle, but when you found someone who not only could deal with your silliness but also liked it then you found something special!

Mabel had found her people when she met her two best friends when she was six and she can clearly remember every moment of their first meeting.

She’d been put in a timeout for freeing the class pet, because her six-year-old self could see the longing for freedom in the tiny animals eyes where she met two girls who were also in a timeout.

One was in a time out because she had attacked another kid over a snack while the other was in a time out because the teacher thought she ‘didn’t have an indoor voice’.

Which was ridiculous because Grenda’s voice was beautiful!

When Mabel had met those two girls there was an instant click, like these were the people she belonged with. That they understood her, they were like her. They were her people.

And as Mabel was speaking to him she got that same feeling from John.

Maybe it was his own little bit of silliness, maybe it was the fact that he didn’t seemed phased by her, what ever it was she knew that John was one of her people.

And she had to let her other people know.

She had art class next, which was great because it gave her more of an opportunity to talk with Candy and Grenda than other classes would.

Plus Mabel loved art! No one knows what art means or where it comes from, but one thing is for sure: she’s great at it!

Her art teacher shrugged as Mabel handed her a note explaining why she was late before going to her place next to her friends.

“Today class we’ll be drawing leaves, please collect a dried leaf from the front. Now I want you to examine the leaf carefully, draw all the veins-“ the teacher began while Mabel turned her attention to her friends to tell them the big new.

“Hello Mabel, we were starting to wonder where you were,” Candy said to her as the girls began drawing. “I was worried sick!” Grenda practically yelled.

Most teachers would have told Grenda off for speaking loudly but the art teacher was more understanding of the jade-blooded trolls loud voice so the teacher just sighed at the front while looking at the other students.

“Big news girls I’ve found another one of us!” Mabel said excitedly while her friends had questioning looks on their faces so Mabel decided to go into a bit more detail.

“Okay so you guys know how I love you and you’re my people?” Mabel began as the other two girls nodded.

“Well I think I’ve found another person who’s my people!” she explained practically vibrating with excitement.

“Oh my gosh Mabel are you serious!?” Grenda asked enthusiastically while Candy had a look that was a mix of excitement and curiosity.

“Who is it? Who is it?” Candy asked as Mabel’s grin widened.

She knew they’d want to turn their trio into a quartet!

“So you guys know that a new kid came today right?” Mabel said wanting to tell them all about the new friend.

“I heard he dumped water on Kennik in homeroom” Candy said probably having heard the gossip in between periods.

Candy was an information gathering genius! Honestly Chui was just a straight up genius she would be in the more advanced classes like Dipper was if the school didn’t feel like Candy had ‘discipline issues’.

Set one classroom on fire and you labeled for life it seems.

“I heard about that it’s hilarious!” Grenda said Mabel nodding in agreement because it was hilarious the look on that jerk Kennik’s face was priceless.

They started discussing John and Mabel began explaining why she felt he was a good fit for their group.

She couldn’t wait for Candy and Grenda to meet him, they were going to love him and he was going to love them she just knew!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd already written some of this chapter earlier so it was fairly quick to write, and I had fun with it because I've always felt like Mabel and John would click well together. Here we get to enjoy casual thief Mabel (since she was raised by Stan in this AU) and troll Grenda since this is Earth C I thought it would be cool to make Grenda a troll since her name is 6 letters. I was thinking about stretching Candy's name out and making her a troll as well but then decided not to on a coin flip.


	3. Chapter 3

“Go! We’ll pack up for you” Candy said once the class had wrapped up as Grenda nodded enthusiastically.

“We’ll meet you at lunch Mabel!” Grenda called after her as she sprinted to the door.

Mabel loved art class but it always had a habit of over running and having to put away the art supplies didn’t help matters either.

Next period was lunch with was the perfect opportunity to introduce John to Candy and Grenda hopefully John hadn’t gotten too far after his math class.

Mabel was starting to get close when she noticed Kennik’s gang was cornering someone, and that someone was John!

Oh heck no! No body was allowed to mess with her people!

Some people tried sure, her group was known as the weird girls for whatever reason but Mabel Pines always stood up for her friends!

“Should have stayed in that locker Egbert!” Kennik said as John started backing away with his hands raised defensively.

“Yeah, but then I’d have missed class and education is important you know?” John said nervously.

It was at that moment Mabel decided to step in, she did a run up and managed to kick Kennik into a conveniently opened locker; okay that locker was probably open so they could throw John in it but right now it was convenient to her.

“Okay boys we all know how this goes!” Mabel said as she shut the locker before Kennik had a chance to protest, he’d be in there for a while until someone let him out because he’d get into some serious trouble if he broke another locker door.

She turned to Kennik’s friends as three of them were charging at her.

Her body moved from experience, she dodged one swing and another while laughing, “don’t you guys know it’s rude to try and hit a lady?” Mabel said as she gave one boy a left hook just like her Uncle Stan taught her.

Mabel stepped out the way as another guy ran at her and he crashed into the lockers behind her. Now just kick the last guy trying to fight in the place boys didn’t like to be kicked in and down he went.

There was just one guy out of the gang who had held back from fighting left.

“Well?” Mabel asked as the other boy looked at one of his friends curled up on the floor, another holding his bleeding nose and another picking himself up from crashing into lockers.

The boy started shaking his head as if he didn’t want to deal with this today.

“I don’t even really like these guys Mabel!” he said before running off, pfff amateurs. 

“Umm…” came John’s voice, Mabel turned to see him pressed up against the wall with a face that looked like he couldn’t believe what had happened.

At that moment Mabel suddenly felt a bit nervous, maybe she’d gone a bit overboard. Oh no! She hoped she hadn’t messed up her chances at making a new friend.

“That was so cool!” John said his face lighting up as he dragged Mabel out of her thoughts.

She knew it John was one of her people! You could never go overboard for your people!

“That was amazing Mabel! You’re my hero!” John said the last part a bit jokingly and she couldn’t help but laugh at that.

“I’ve never had someone defend me like that Mabel thank you!” John said as she brushed the compliment off.

“What? It’s nothing,” she said though really she was drinking in the praise.

“No way you practically destroyed those guys where’d you learn to fight like that?” John asked enthusiastically as she shrugged.

“I have a twin brother and somebody had to protect him,” Mabel explained simply and John nodded as if her statement was all he needed to know.

“Damn it Mabel, we’ve stopped bothering Dip-stick what do you want?” the voice of the boy she’d punched called as Mabel turned to look at him.

His nose was still bleeding while his friend who crashed into the lockers was helping up the one she kicked.

Mabel slung her arm around John much to his surprise before answering the jerks question “All right guys listen up! The new kid John here is officially one of my people starting now! Which means he’s under my protection so if you mess with him then you mess with me!” she said pointing at herself before pausing for dramatic effect.

She watched as her words sunk in before continuing “And you’ll also have to deal with Candy and Grenda next time!” she finished as a look of horror spread of the bullies faces.

“Forget this!” one of the boys said dropping his friend and starting to run away.

Mabel couldn’t help smirking; she thinks she made her point pretty well.

“So umm… Who’s Candy and Grenda?” John asked nervously as Mabel felt her face go into a full out grin.

“Got any plans for lunch?” she asked as John shook his head.

“Well now you do!” Mabel stated.

She started dragging John to the cafeteria and other than a “whoa, hey, wait” he didn’t really complain.

When they got there Candy and Grenda were already at their usual table and they waved excitedly at her.

“Hey guys!” She called back waving and then she started to point at John enthusiastically.

John gave a nervous wave back and the three girls cheered. 

“Do you have a packed lunch?” Mabel asked as John shook his head.

“Umm, my mom gave me some lunch money” he said as Mabel nodded.

“Cool let me show you where to get some food!” Mabel said dragging him around.

It wasn’t long before John was sitting down with Mabel and her friends.

“Are we entirely certain this is edible” John said looking at his tray uncertainly.

“Absolutely not” Candy said simply putting a piece of today’s meatloaf in a test tube, she was doing an experiment on the cafeteria food for this years science fair. It was going to be big!

“Oh John, we know the food here isn’t edible” Mabel said taking out her packed lunch.

“I can’t believe they feed this stuff to children!” Grenda joked while putting a spoonful in her mouth as the rest of the table laughed.

“So the questionability of the food aside I’m John, I’m guessing you guys are Mabel friends?” John asked as Candy nodded.

“Yes that is correct-,” she said before Mabel interrupted,

“Oh they’re more than just my friends John they’re my people!” Mabel said enthusiastically.

“The same people that you told those guys I was?” John asked slyly as Mabel nodded,

“You got it!” Mabel said with a wink.

“Oh well it’s an honor” John joked as the three girls nodded because yes it was an honor.

“Yep! You’re joining a pretty cool group if I do say so myself” Mabel said leaning her arm on the side of the table when in slipped off the surface.

“And I’m up!” she said picking herself up near immediately.

“I’m Grenda! And this is Candy!” Grenda said gesturing to Candy next to her and Candy waved in response.

“Oh yeah Mabel mentioned you guys!” John said realization dawning on his face.

“She did?! Oh my gosh what did you say?! All good I hope!” Grenda asked coyly as Mabel laughed, she didn’t think it was possible to say anything bad about her friends if she tried.

“Well she didn’t really talk about you, it was more kind of mentioning your names to terrify a bunch of bullies” John said.

“Kennik’s gang,” Mabel elaborated as Candy started nodding in approval.

“Good my name should strike fear into the hearts of my enemies” Candy noted as John nodded in understanding.

“I’m sure it does,” he said and Candy smiled at that.

“So John tell us about yourself!” Grenda exclaimed and the conversation hit off from there.

They started talking about random stuff at some point and it was really fun and John started to look more comfortable as they continued on. It seemed like it didn’t take much for Candy and Grenda to accept John into their group.

Yep! John was definitely her people!

\---

Dipper Pines had been hearing gossip about a new kid all over school.

Heck it wasn’t as though he was surprised though, Gravity Falls was a small town and Dipper didn’t think someone new had come into town since he was born.

Oh course it would grab everyone’s attention.

Dipper himself was kind of interested as well, but it didn’t look like the new kid was in any of his classes so he’d doubt he’d interact with them much.

Dipper was sure he’d see the kid around some time if they lasted that long, apparently they’d played a prank on Kennik and from his own experience with the guy Dipper did not envy this new kid.

He hadn’t really expected the new kid to show up at his sister’s table though.

Dipper usually sat with his sister and her friends whenever he decided to eat in the cafeteria since he didn’t really have anyone else to sit with.

No big deal it was just hard to find people his age that he could fit in with. It was fine.

Sure there was one girl in his class that seemed nice enough but she got along with everyone.

He felt more at home when hanging out with Soos or Wendy than his classmates.

To be honest he missed being in the same classes as Mabel, before he’d been moved to the advance classes it’d been kind of fun talking to her during class when things got too boring. Sometimes he feels like he should have listened to Uncle Stan and thought about the advanced classes more carefully instead of jumping on it as soon as the opportunity presented itself.

Around the time lunch rolled around he stayed behind to ask the teacher some questions before deciding he should probably eat something and decided that if Mabel was still in the cafeteria he could eat something with her.

He’d heard that the new kid was in her homeroom, so she probably had a bunch to say about them.

Dipper kind of hoped that the new kid wasn’t a boy though; he didn’t want Mabel to get another crush.

His sister could fall in love in less than three seconds and he got that she was supposed to be going through her whole boy crazy phase but she was overdoing it with the crazy part sometimes.

Mabel was way cooler to hang out with back before she got all hung up about romance.

When Dipper entered the cafeteria he saw a face he didn’t recognize happily talking to Mabel.

Oh boy.

With a sigh Dipper went to sit down next to the group and took out his lunch, Mabel noticed his arrival and excitedly greeted him.

“Dipper! Come meet John!” Mabel said to him gesturing to the new kid next to her.

“John this is my twin Dipper,” Mabel said introducing him.

“Hey” Dipper muttered nonchalantly taking a bite out of his sandwich not really caring about Mabel’s latest crush of the week, he thought she was still in to some guy from the grade above them but whatever.

“hi I’m John,” the new kid said giving him a slight wave when Grenda started talking.

“He’s the latest member of our group!” the girl practically yelled, Grenda was loud but nice enough though what she said though got his attention.

“Wait your turning your trio into a quintet?” he asked curiously as Mabel nodded enthusiastically. 

“Yep! John’s officially part of my circle of friend’s bro-bro! John expect your membership card within the week!” Mabel joked at the new kid causing him to laugh.

“Oh man, well I’m looking forward to it!” he said as they both grinned at each other.

“Umm Mabel can I talk to you in private a sec?” Dipper asked as he dragged his twin under the table.

“What’s up Dipper?” she asked putting her hand from out underneath the table and made a grabbing motion with it, someone on the table handed her, her juice box of orange juice.

“Thank you” she called before taking a sip.

“Mabel are you sure it’s okay to let your latest crush into your group of friends?” he asked causing Mabel to spit out her drink.

Gross, “Mabel” he complained as Dipper used his shirt to wipe off the juice that had got on his face as his sister started laughing.

“Oh my gosh Dipper no! My heart belongs to a sophisticated older man,” Mabel said dreamily as Dipper rolled his eyes.

“He’s like less than a year older than us Mabel,” he said in a bored tone while Mabel shoved him.

“So if that’s the case what are you doing with the new kid?” Dipper asked curiously because he hadn’t expected Mabel to do something that wasn’t for some crush.

“He’s one of my people Dipper I can feel it in my soul!” she said enthusiastically.

Oh, okay. Mabel’s ‘people’ where who she called people she was close friends with like Candy and Grenda and now this guy called John apparently?

“Hey are you guy’s okay? Mabel had me hand her a juice box but you’ve been down there for a few minutes” John asked looking underneath the table.

“Hey what are you guys doing?!” Grenda called also looking underneath the table, “Candy is here too,” Candy stated.

As always Mabel’s friends were a little strange, and from the looks of things this John guy fit right in.

So Mabel had made a new friend well Dipper supposed he was nice enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And Dipper's here, no more chapter titles from this point on because I kind of such at them also warning for the next chapter, John's 'mom' might be introduced probably so a warning for emotional abuse or at least hinted at I'm not sure how well I'll be able to write it.


	4. Chapter 4

“So John why’d you move here?” Dipper asked curiously, he knew that Gravity Falls was pretty far out and there weren’t any other towns that weren’t consort villages for miles heck he had barley even been outside of town the same went for most people here.

Why someone wanted to move to the middle of nowhere was kind of beyond him.

“Oh my mom moved us here for work,” John explained looking a little nervous; huh guess he wasn’t quite sure what to do with all of Dipper’s questioning. It didn’t mean Dipper was going to stop though.

“What does your mom do?” Mabel asked excitedly.

“Oh well I don’t really know much about what she does really, normal business stuff I guess,” John replied looking a bit embarrassed.

Yeah that made sense, his mom probably worked for the Northwest’s in one of their companies and they brought her over here. It’s reasonable to think that the Northwest’s were involved they owned everything.

It’s what made Pacifica so smug all the damn time.

“What does your father do?” Candy asked offhandedly when John suddenly looked down not making eye contact with anyone at the table.

“Oh um, I don’t really have a dad,” John muttered his voice nearly inaudible. Part of Dipper wondered if there is a story there but another part of him knew it wasn’t really his place to ask. His twin made eye contact with him before speaking.

“Hey us too! Me and Dipper live with our Uncle at the Mystery shack!” Mabel said enthusiastically, you’d think she’d be a bit more careful with the subject on the fact that the twins didn’t have parents but to tell the truth that never really bothered them.

Stan was like a mother and father rolled up in one, he may be a con man but he loved his family more than anything and Dipper and Mabel loved him.

Dipper remembered the first time he was bullied Stan taught both him and Mabel how to punch someone so that ‘if the world picks a fight you can fight back’. Dipper found himself slightly smiling fondly at the memory.

So yeah he and Mabel never really wished they had normal parents because they were already a family and besides it was hard to miss something you never really had.

“Mystery Shack?” John asked curiously jumping on the opportunity to change the subject as Dipper and his twin nodded enthusiastically. 

“It’s basically a tourist trap, the real mystery is why anyone comes. Gravity Falls doesn’t get many tourists but most stop by the mystery shack and its popular among the locals of the town as well,” Dipper explained. 

Everything about the Mystery Shack was to basically con people out of money, everything was overpriced and all the exhibits were fake. He knows because he was responsible for helping make most of them.

Dipper’s mind drifted to all the road trippers who had been ripped off by his uncle.

“Hey John after school you should totally walk home with me and Dipper and check it out!” Mabel said excitedly turning to Dipper as he shrugged.

An unsure look fell on John’s face, “geez I don’t know Mabel, I mean I don’t think my mom would like me to stay out that late,” John muttered as Mabel waved her hand dismissively.

“Don’t worry I won’t keep you out too late and besides my people get to go free!” Mabel said with a wink.

“It’s true I haven’t had to pay to visit the mystery shack since I was six!” Grenda added.

“Trust me man, you should go. It’s a good deal considering tickets are like 15 bucks,” Dipper said getting up since lunch was nearly over anyway.

Well he’s satisfied his curiosity.

“I’ll see you later Mabel, and you too John if you decide to walk home with us.” Dipper said walking away.

“Bye Dipper see you at the end of the day!” Mabel said waving him good-bye.

Before he exited the cafeteria he could see the group of girls and a guy excitedly talking while Mabel was writing something on a piece of paper with a glitter gel pen.

If he knew his sister she was probably circling all the classes she shared with John on his timetable, she did that with Candy and Grenda and she used to that with Dipper back when they shared classes together.

Dipper almost kind of felt sorry for John, he hopes his sister wouldn’t turn the other boy’s timetable into a complete glittery mess.

Oh who was he kidding she totally would.

Dipper made his way to the room where his history class was and sat down just as the bell rang.

“Hello, Mason I see you were talking to the new kid at lunch! That’s quite exciting isn’t it?” a voice that was a mix of both enthusiasm and calmness said behind him as he tried to resist the urge to groan that came up every time someone said his real name.

It was just so lame.

Dipper turned to see a girl called Lily sitting behind him smiling in the seat behind him.

Lily was nice enough; she was on the student council and seemed to know everyone. Since they had a lot of classes together she often made a point to make small talk with him but honestly Dipper could never really get a read on her.

“Oh yeah, Mabel’s gotten pretty attached to him already. They have a lot of classes together apparently so Mabel introduced us.” Dipper explained.

“Well that’s nice that she’s making him feel welcome.” Lily said with a smile as their history teacher walked in and the entire class turned their attention towards the older man at the front of the class.

“Now class shall we continue where we left off with the fall of the Carapacian Empire?” The teacher asked enthusiastically before scanning his eyes across the room. “Ah miss Nettle could you give the class a brief reminder on what we covered last lesson?” he continued as Lily stood up.

“I would be happy to,” she said with a smile before clearing her throat and beginning to speak. “There have always been four main ruling species on this world: Human, Troll, Carapacian and Consort. The Consorts have always lived in little villages of their own away from most main societies with their own villages and towns but relations with whatever ruling society and the consorts have always been friendly.” Lily said getting into the exposition. 

“In fact most of Gravity Falls’ tourism comes from Consort villages, they are particularly fond of the Mystery Shack. Just like the rest of us it is a great place!” Lily joked which spurred some laughter from the rest of the class.

“The first proper civilization we have record of is an ancient city referred to as ‘Can Town’, which seems to have been ruled by Carapacian’s in this society all species lived together. There are some historians who note that the Carapacian’s seemed to have been caregivers to the humans and trolls and many theories suggest that the Carapacian’s are an older species than the other two” Lily stated as the history teacher nodded.

“Excellent Miss Nettle, now who can tell me why the Carapacian Empire fell?” The teacher asked and Dipper decided to raise his hand.

“Excellent! Mr. Pines?” The teacher prompted choosing Dipper out of the hands raised in the class.

“Well the most basic summery was that it grew too big, as it grew human only area’s started forming and troll only area’s started forming and a separation among the four species began to form which led to the troll human war which we covered a while ago,” Dipper as the history teach nodded at his answer with approval.

“Exactly! Now class if you’ll turn your attention to the slides I have prepared…” the teacher began turning on the projector as Dipper and the rest of the class started taking notes.

\---

The rest of the day went pretty well for John, he’d made some friends, which was great, and Mabel had convinced him to come check out her house.

Apparently her house was also a tourist trap, which sounded pretty fun so he was actually kind of looking forward to seeing it, he just hoped that he could get home before mom did.

As long as he managed that she wouldn’t know that he hadn’t come straight home.

His mom was a bit more… high maintenance than most but that was just because she loved him right?

John tried thinking back to his memories of his mother but since they stretched back to when he was young they were pretty blurry just like everyone else’s childhood memories he guesses.

She worked quite a lot so it’s not like she had a lot of time to spend with him growing up.

He tried to ignore the feeling he had at lunch when Candy mentioned father’s… he was raised by a single mother so he’d never really known his dad. Mom never even mentioned him.

So it was natural for John to feel a bit sad when dad’s were mentioned right?

Yeah totally fine!

It’s just whenever he thought about having a dad he always got this sad feeling…it was like… he’d lost something important.

But yeah no reason to be negative!

“So what’s the history teacher like?” John asked Mabel distracting himself from his previous line of thought as they walked to their last class of the day; it looked like they had most of their classes together with one or two exceptions, which was great!

Mabel groaned as she walked beside him, “Dipper’s teacher for history is so much nicer than that old lady!” Mabel complained.

“Dipper has a different history teacher?” John asked as Mabel nodded,

“Yeah! Dipper’s in the advance classes…” Mabel said trailing off a bit, but picked right back up when she noticed him staring at her. “Their history teacher is literally the best while ours kind of goes on and on and on and well you’ll see.” Mabel explained as they walked in the classroom.

“John! I’ve got a desk right next to mine with your name on it!” Mabel said taking her seat while John went to collect a textbook from the teacher up front.

Huh? He’d noticed that there was usually an empty desk next to Mabel in most of their classes’ wonder why that was.

“You can sit at Mason’s old desk Johnathan.” The teacher said not looking up from her papers.

“It’s just John actually,” he muttered nervously making his way to the desk.

“Alright class, today we’ll begin a new topic going over troll society and influence throughout history,” The teacher began tiredly as if she didn’t really want to be here. Okay he could see why Mabel wouldn’t like her but despite the boring tone being used John felt himself listening intently, for some reason the mention of trolls and their shenanigans throughout history caught his interest. 

“As we all know trolls can have a different blood color and while its relevance has died down in modern day after the troll human war which will be covered later a hemospectrum of class structure among the trolls was born. Mutant or red-blooded trolls were considered a sign of fortune and prosperity due to their rarity and religious links as well as having the same blood color as humans. From there Burgundy was considered the most important blood with Fuchsia being the lowest as those higher in the hemospectrum had psychic powers and shorter lives which were considered beautiful and fleeting while those lower in the spectrum such as indigo or violet bloods lived longer and could sustain more injury making them more equipped for battle and labor.” The teacher droned on reading from the textbook.

Mabel had helped John find the page, it seemed most of the history classes was just following along with the text book, did they really need the teacher here if that was the case.

“There have been negative links with Fuchsia bloods due to religion and the caste was nearly hunted into extinction because of this from prejudice…” the teacher continued as John found himself frowning.

‘Man Karkat would hate all this hemospectrum stuff.’ The thought popped into John’s head.

…Wait…who?

There was a buzzing in his head as John started examining his thoughts.

Who was… 

John struggled to remember the name he just thought of.

Every time he thought it got close, it escaped his grasp and the more he tried to think about it the harder it was to remember… what he was trying to remember.

He’d thought of someone… someone important… but why couldn’t he remember what…

Wait… what was he trying to remember again…

“John I know you’re new, but please don’t day dream in class.” The teacher said suddenly knocking John out of his thoughts.

He felt a bit embarrassed as some of the class snickered at him, man Mabel was right this lady could drone on, he’d completely zoned out!

He hadn’t even really been thinking about anything! Wow if he wasn’t careful then he could end up falling asleep during this class especially since history looked like it tended to be in the last periods of the day.

John turned his attention back to the lesson and tried not to zone out again.

After that the rest of the lesson went pretty smoothly, and after the bell rang the teacher sighed and put down her book, “okay, please do the sheet you were all given see you next time.” She said simply practically out the door.

John started packing away his things when Mabel came up next to him.

“You ready to see the Mystery Shack?” she asked excitedly with a huge grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've delayed some plot in exchange for some world building. I thought it would be fun if there was a flipped Hemospectrum also there are some slight mentions of the Creators being religious figures so the enemies they faced are probably viewed as like the devil. That snap chat upd8 of those children dressing up like Bec Jack, Lord English and )(IC is probably the same as dressing up like the devil for Halloween.
> 
> And knowing what religion can sometimes be like a tragic history for Fuchsia bloods.


	5. Chapter 5

John let Mabel drag him out the school, which suited him just fine since he was still figuring out his way around. She stopped once they were outside the school doors and he looked questioningly at her. Noticing his look she decided to explain, “The advance classes can take a bit longer to wrap up so we’ll wait for Dipper here” she explained.

He nodded at her answer but geez if they were waiting for Dipper anyway then why did she have to practically drag him out of the class as quickly as she could?

Next to him he could see Mabel practically vibrating with excitement, “I can’t wait to show you all the stuff at the shack John you are gonna love it!” she said enthusiastically and John couldn’t help smile to himself.

When was the last time someone had been this excited to hang out with him?

Probably never since he never really had any friends, like sure people said he was nice enough and everyone loved practical jokes but other than just talking to him during class or saying hi to him in the hallway he’d never really been able to interact with people much in his previous schools.

It’d be better to say that he had acquaintances instead of friends until now.

John had the feeling of what it would be like to have close friends though, he didn’t really know why but then again he guesses everyone had an idea of what friendship was like what with TV and books constantly bombarding everyone with messages of the power of friendship used to save the world.

“So what’s the Mystery Shack like?” he asked curiously because other than it being a tourist trap John honestly had no clue what to expect.

“It’s this cool place with all these exhibits of the worlds strange and weird!” Mabel told him enthusiastically, putting emphasis on different words to sound more dramatic.

“I suddenly understand everything!” He joked causing Mabel to laugh and it was at that point Dipper started walking towards them.

“Hey Mabel, did I keep you waiting long?” Dipper asked running up to his twin as Mabel shook her head.

“Nah, I was just talking to John here about the Mystery Shack” Mabel answered and gestured to John causing him to shrug.

Dipper turned to him to greet him as well “oh hey John looks like you decided to come after all, heads up every exhibit is fake” Dipper said as Mabel shoved him.

“It’s great John! We have a unicorn made of corn!” Mabel said as if that was the most magical thing ever, well it did sound pretty magical.

“Correction we used to have a unicorn made of corn the corn-i-corn got eaten by Waddles remember?” Dipper asked as he started walking away from them making their way down the street away from the school.

Mabel rolled her eyes as she followed her brother dragging John along with her “I told Uncle Stan I would make him a new one don’t worry” she said waving off her twins comment.

“So who’s Waddles?” John asked curiously as Mabel’s eyes lit up at his question.

“He is the most adorable pig in existence John! That’s who Waddles is! He’s practically my soulmate,” Mabel explained as Dipper rolled his eyes.

“John keep in mind that she’s said that about a ball of yarn once” Dipper told him as John started laughing,

“Well I’m sure it was a very nice ball of yarn,” he joked as Mabel nodded approvingly.

It wasn’t long before they got to 618 Gopher Road where a crowd of consorts were piling out, John found himself smiling at the sight of the salamanders, and they were salamanders not lizards it's important to know that. Whenever he met one they were always really nice to him.

“Thank you and remember we put the ‘fun’ in no refund!” A man in a fez called waving the consorts goodbye.

“Uncle Stan!” Mabel called to the adult running up and practically tackling the man in a hug, to John’s surprise the man nearly picked Mabel up and returned the hug. Huh, John’s never seen an adult act so affectionate with their kid before, his mom sure didn’t act like that.

“Consorts from nearby villages come over here for tours, they're like Gravity Falls’ main tourists, their practically our towns only tourists honestly,” Dipper explained to him before going off to greet the man that Mabel was excitedly chatting to, their uncle John guesses.

“Hey Dipper how was your day kid?” Dipper and Mabel’s uncle asked ruffling Dipper’s hair nearly causing the boys green hat to fall off, “eh, it was okay” Dipper shrugged as he fixed his hat back into place.

“I beat up a bunch of boys who were messing with my people!” Mable piped up causing her Uncle to laugh and ruffle her hair as well, “atta girl, you give ‘em hell pumpkin!” he praised as Mabel laughed before turning to John.

“John come over here!” she called gesturing him to stop standing off to the side, it was at that moment John realizes that he had kind of been frozen in place until Mabel walked up to him and dragged him back with her.

“Uncle Stan, this is my new best friend, John! He just moved here and he’s in a bunch of my classes isn’t that cool!?” Mabel introduced him excitedly and John could feel himself blushing as he waved nervously.

“Hey,” Mabel’s Uncle greeted him gruffly before he began to stretch “well, I’m beat. Soos is in the shack clearing up if you need anything” he said and Mabel responded with a ‘will do’ before dragging John with her into her house.

Boy he was getting dragged around a lot today.

The inside was very cool, John had to admit. There were some hilariously fake exhibits around like The Sascrotch? What even was that?

Eventually they came across a man sweeping up what looked like confetti “Oh hey dudes,” he said when he noticed Mabel and Dipper giving them each a high five before noticing John “oh hey who’s this?” he asked curiously in a friendly voice.

“This is John he just moved here,” Dipper explained before he moved into another room.

“Sup dude? Name’s Soos” he introduced holding out his hand for John to high-five which he did. You should never refuse a high five that would be the very rude.

“Hey Soos, my shifts done.” A red headed teenager called walking in with Dipper when her eyes fell of John, “oh snap is this the new kid Dipper told me about?” she asked as John and Mabel nodded.

The rest of John’s time spent at the mystery shack was actually pretty fun, he got introduced to Soos and Wendy who worked there who also acted as the twins’ unofficial baby sitters whenever their Uncle was busy and they were actually pretty cool. He and Mabel did their homework together with Dipper occasionally helping Mabel with hers.

John ended completely losing track of time and nearly had a heart attack when his eyes drifted over to the clock. “Oh man, I need to get going my mom would kill me if I stayed out any later without telling her.” John said packing up his things hurriedly.

“You need a lift dude?” Soos asked as John shook his head, “no it’s not really that far but thanks though.” John told him as Mabel came up next to him.

“Come on I’ll walk you out,” she said as they made their way to the door, once they were outside Mabel gave him a hug and told him she’d see him a school tomorrow, John should have left at that in fact he started to leave when something caused him to stop in place.

“… Hey Mabel?” he called causing Mabel to turn back around as she had just been about to go back inside.

“Yeah?” she called back curiously and John found himself shuffling about in place, “Um… do you think… is it okay if I come over to hang out tomorrow as well?” John muttered looking at his shoes, when he looked up he saw Mabel with the biggest smile he had ever seen her with.

“Absolutely!” she said and John found his face breaking out into a smile as well.

“Great! See you at school!” he called waving goodbye as he left the area and starting making his way back to his new house. The movers had done most of the unpacking for them so there weren’t a bunch of boxes everywhere like you see on TV and his mom had made him unpack all his things in his room as soon as they arrived.

Heck their fridge already had food in it! No one could ever say his mom wasn’t efficient.

He’d done all his homework at Mabel’s place so he hurriedly starting copying out his timetable to put on the fridge because he knew mom would ask, hopefully he could get enough studying done before mom came in. After nearly an hour had passed his mom came back home.

“Hey mom, how was your day?” He greeted clearing up his books, his mother barely acknowledged him simply nodding to him as she hung up her coat.

“John there are some ready-made meals in the fridge, warm them up will you?” she said offhandedly barely looking at him as she started making her way upstairs, John nodded and went to do just that; his mom didn’t really like to cook.

He started laying the table as the meals heated up and put the meals on plates when they were done. At that point his mom had come back downstairs and took her plate to eat at the table, John quickly joining her.

They ate in silence for a bit until his mom decided to speak, “so John I see you’ve written out your timetable and put it on the fridge, is there a reason that the original is not up there?” she asked coldly and John got the impression that he’d done something wrong.

But yeah, there was a reason considering Mabel had drawn all over his timetable in glitter jell marker showing him all the classes that they shared together, he actually really liked it Mabel seemed to have a lot of fun as she circled each class they shared and she told them a bit about the class.

But his mom would probably not appreciate that.

“They printed out the timetable a bit small and I thought you’d want a bigger copy,” he lied hoping that was convincing enough. He had to hold in the sigh of relief when she nodded.

“I see, have you done all your homework?” she asked and he nodded. She gave him a disapproving look causing him to freeze in place.

“Answer properly when someone asks you a question John, do you understand?” she scolded as John looked down.

“Yes,” he muttered nodding his head.

“Yes what?” his mother prompted “yes I understand,” John said as his mother smiled to herself.

“Good, now have you done all the homework you’ve been set today?” mom asked again as she turned her attention back to her dinner while he answered.

“Yeah, I did it earlier before you came home,” he told her leaving out that he had been with Mabel when he did it.

“Good and you’ve studying I take it?” she asked as if checking something off a lift as John answered that he had despite the fact that she had seen him studying when she got home. “And have you practiced your piano today?” she asked which caused John to freeze. Noticing his pause when he didn’t answer right away she looked at him, his mom had a weird stare it kind of reminded him of the way scientists would look at something underneath a microscope.

“John, have you been practicing piano today?” she repeated the question coldly as he pushed his food around with his fork. “…not exactly” he admitted and his mother gave a disappointed sigh.

“I’m disappointed in you John,” she said causing him to flinch. “I suppose you will have to practice as soon as your finished with your dinner and wake up an hour early tomorrow morning to practice again then to make up for your slacking off” she said or rather ordered as she got up having finished her meal.

He sat in silence as his mom began to walk away when he suddenly spoke up “mom wait!” he called causing the older women to stop before she had left the room, she turned to him and John felt his words about to get stuck in his throat “um, I made a friend today and she’s invited me over to her house tomorrow to hang out and do homework” he said hoping that maybe if he got permission then he could spend a bit longer at the shack than he had today.

If his mom said no he was going to have to go there in secret like he had today.

He waited as his mother examined him before speaking “well it’s good you’ve been able to interact with the other kids. What’s her name?” she asked, so far so good.

 

“Mabel Pines,” he answered and in that moment his mother went completely still. Internally John panicked trying to think how he had messed up when after a few moments of probably the coldest silence he had ever known and knowing his mother that was saying something she spoke up.

“Pines…Interesting…” she muttered “you’ll have to introduce me to her some time I suppose…” she said thoughtfully before continuing “but yes John feel free to spend time with your class mate. Socializing is good for your development.” She said as she left the room and John sighed in relief when she had.

Yes! It looks like he was good to hang out with Mabel tomorrow, he couldn’t wait to tell her when he saw her at school.

\---

Things had been great! John had been hanging out with her and her friends a lot and John was definitely officially one of her people! He’d fit right into her group and Candy, Grenda and Mabel had become Candy, Grenda, Mabel and John.

It had been over a month since John had moved to Gravity Falls and he’d become a big part of her life already. He hung out at the mystery shack practically every day now which made sense she guesses because it seems like his mom tended to get home late and Mabel thought that hanging out with her was way better than just hanging out in some house by yourself!

Uncle Stan quickly got used to John constantly hanging out at the mystery shack to the point that he was now using John for free work and knowing her Uncle that was always a good sign.

The only thing that bothered her was the one aspect of her life that Mabel had to leave John out of and it might just me the most important aspect of her life!

Sleepovers!

She, Candy and Grenda had sleepovers all the time but because of the small issue of ‘John being a guy’ he couldn’t take part in them.

She knew that he felt slightly left out since a lot always happened at sleep overs and John couldn’t take part in them or even know the inside jokes they’d come up with during them. Of course they’d try and explain the inside jokes but sometimes you just had to be there.

John always said he was fine, but Mabel knew, she knew that ‘I’m fine’ in John speak usually meant ‘this bothers me but I have no idea how to talk about my feelings so I’m just going to bottle everything up’.

Which was just blugh! 

No way John! The Mabel Pines train of love and support and friendship was going to figure out a plan.

Which right now was just what she was trying to do. Her brother was reading in his bed next to hers while she was sitting in her bed trying to think of how to solve the sleepover problem. She was even chewing a bit of her hair to try and help her think!

But nothing was working! She let out a groan to complain falling back to lie down on her bed, she let out another frustrated groan as she put her hands over her face.

“You know Mabel you could always just stop having sleepovers,” her brother suggested not looking up from his book.

Mabel immediately sat up, her head snapping towards her brother’s direction as she glared at him in disbelief. Had he really just suggested that?!

Eventually Dipper noticed her glare as he looked up from his book and shrugged “what? You’re sleepovers are loud and destructive, the room is always a mess afterwards which I have to clean up by the way and I have to sleep in the living room every time you have one” Dipper half defended himself half complained.

“Dipper no! Sleepovers are needed to live! And you can’t complain about my sleepovers being loud when you always keep me up with your reading!” she scolded him as Dipper put his book down in his own disbelief.

“What? How does reading keep you up?” he asked as she raised her eyebrow at him, reading is not a quiet activity when you’re always gasping and clicking a pen and wondering ‘who stole the capers?’

“Hey I’m only telling you of an easy way to solve your problem, if you don’t want John to feel left out of your sleepovers just don’t have them. You’ll be fine without them, I don’t have sleep overs.” He told her turning his attention back to his book.

She was about to make an hilarious and witty comeback when suddenly she froze, moving quickly she walked over to his bed ignoring his protest as she pushed his book down to make eye contact with him.

“Say that last part again!” she ordered him excitedly as he raised his eyebrow at her.

“I don’t have sleepovers?” he said uncertainly as she started grinning ear to ear.

"I think you just helped me find a loop hole... literally!" she said as she held up a string with a loop in it for dramatic effect.

Mabel had a plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John's part was a bit long so Mabel's part ended up being short but we're getting close to the stories actual plot I can feel it. Also for anyone who noticed Dipper is still wearing his old hat he hasn't got his Pine tree hat yet.


	6. Chapter 6

Mabel hadn’t told Dipper about the plan the moment it popped into her head she wanted to make a dramatic reveal at lunch when everyone was together. She was so excited, pretty sure she’s a genius for coming up with this one.

Her brother was curious sure, she’d been trying to solve this sleepover dilemma for a while now so he was a little surprised that she hadn’t told everyone she could as soon as she thought of her plan. She wanted to, she was very tempted to call John up and tell him the news.

But she didn’t one, because it was late and two, his mom would probably answer the phone first and that lady gave her the heebie-jeebies, it was always like she was examining them whenever she saw Mabel and John together heck even Dipper got a weird feeling from that lady!

So she decided to get some sleep tomorrow was going to be a big day with big news!

When she got up she got ready as fast as she could and practically sprinted down the stairs when she heard the usual knock at the door.

Recently John had been coming over to the shack in the morning to walk to school together, the tradition started one time when she forgot about this huge homework assignment and the morning it was due she called Candy, Grenda and John in a panic to pool resources so she could do it before the class which was her first period that day.

After that John coming over to walk to school with her became a natural thing.

She was talking to John about how she had come up with the best plan ever but refused to tell him what it was when he asked her, simply telling him to let Candy and Grenda know they were having a meeting at lunch.

After that Mabel concentrated on precisely none of her lessons, she couldn’t she was too excited and for some reason time was literally moving slower! It took forever for lunch to roll round. She bolted out of class as soon as the bell rang and grabbed the usual table.

Candy, Grenda and John arrived shortly after her obviously understanding the importance of this meeting, Dipper was the last to arrive and Mabel had to keep herself from rolling her eyes.

“Okay now that everyone is finally here!” she began giving her brother a look which he just responded to with a shrug, “I’ve come up with a genius plan!” she then went on to tell said genius plan and when she finished Candy and Grenda both looked excited while Dipper and John looked unsure.

“Mabel I don’t know if that would work,” John said after a moment of silence. What how could he not realize what an amazing plan this was? Mabel asked him as much.

“Look John I want you to come to my sleepovers, I want all my friends there! But your mom won’t let you come because you’d be the only guy there but if you said you were having a sleep over with Dipper you could come over to my house and stay the night no problem!” she explained again because this was seriously her greatest plan ever they had to see that.

“Yeah but John’s your friend…” Dipper said as Mabel sighed, despite the fact that John walked to and from school with them and Dipper saw him every time her twin decided to have lunch with her and her friends John and Dipper still knew each other as ‘Mabel’s friend’ and ‘Mabel’s brother’.

Which was fine she guesses but she needed this to work.

“Oh Dipper, adults don’t know who’s friends with who” Candy spoke up, see this is why Can- Can was the best.

“Yes thank you Candy!” she exclaimed in excitement and then looked at her brother expectantly she watched her brother sigh before he finally relented “All right, okay” Dipper conceded and she immediately thanked him with a hug “YES! THANK YOU! THIS GUY! HE’S NUMBER ONE!” she yelled happily pointing at her brother and grabbing the attention of most of the people in the cafeteria.

“Okay, okay shh” Dipper hurriedly tried to calm her down, he got embarrassed too easily were was the fun in that? Come on Dipper at least make it hard for her, give her a challenge!

“So when’s the next sleep over?” John asked and Mabel could tell he was trying not to look excited but it was pretty obvious he was excited.

“Okay so this weekend Uncle Stan is throwing the annual party that he has to get kids to spend money at the Shack. It’s amazing we have a dance off and a party crown and afterwards Candy and Grenda stay the night for a sleep over,” Mabel explains as John nods excitedly.

“Ugh, Pacifica is probably going to try and win the Party Crown again this year,” Dipper complained and Mabel groaned at the mention of her rival. Pacifica always tried to ruin everything but this was John’s first Mystery Shack party and no way was Mabel letting Pacifica ruin that!

“Who’s Pacifica?” John asked curiously and Mabel found herself groaning again despite herself, that’s right John hadn’t met her yet since she went to rich people school.

“Pacifica Northwest is the most popular girl in town,” Candy explained as Mabel nodded feeling like she should say something since she was pretty sure the only reason Pacifica kept coming to that party was to mess with her.

“She’s kind of like my rival,” Mabel added in feeling like that the best explanation she could come up with to whatever the heck her relationship with Pacifica was. She guesses she hadn’t exactly helped their relationship either what with the fact that last year she started a rumor that Pacifica’s butler picked her noes for her but you know what’s done is done.

“She’s the worst.” Dipper said simply it was funny despite that fact that Pacifica usually targeted Mabel, Dipper seemed to have the biggest grudge against her. “She thinks just because her family founded the town and they own everything that she can just do whatever she wants!” Dipper continued anger dripping into his voice.

“I only ever feel bad about myself when she’s around!” Grenda chimed in as John looked at them all as if he didn’t know what to say.

“Ugh, that sucks! Grenda your great don’t let this Pacifica girl or whatever make you feel otherwise!” John said finally and Mabel found herself laughing.

Yes! That’s right John was her friend and she was going to make sure he enjoyed this party!

They were doing this people! They were making this happen!

 

\---

 

Later that day Mabel had told Dipper that John’s mom had said yes to ‘his’ sleepover with him and also that John was going to help them out with setting up the party.

Dipper and his sister were messing around with silly string when John showed up to help with the parties set up, Mabel called him over and immediately sprayed the poor kid with silly string as soon as he got close.

“Oh man, can’t believe I didn’t see that one coming” John said picking the silly string off him and throwing it back at Mabel who was laughing.

Dipper guesses that John was an okay guy, there wasn’t anything really to dislike about him for one and Mabel enjoyed spending time with him which put John in Dipper’s good books as far as he was concerned especially since John wasn’t another one of Mabel’s crushes.

Thank the Gods for that.

John was actually the least weird person in Mabel’s group of friends so it was good that there was at least someone there in that group with sanity. So yeah John was a pretty good guy but they didn’t really have much excuse for interaction outside of Mabel so Dipper was basically neutral when it came to his opinion on John.

“All right party people! And Dipper,” Stan began getting everyone’s attention so that he could assign jobs, Dipper had to resist frowning at his Uncle’s comment. Uncle Stan did that every year when would he learn that it wasn’t really that funny?

“Here are everyone’s jobs for tonight, Soos because you’ll work for free and you beg every year you get to be DJ” Stan said reading from a list, it was the same every year though Dipper guesses John will be added in this year so it looks like Mabel is going to have help with the decorations and catering.

“Yes!” Soos said excitedly and John gave Soos a high five. The two of them actually got along really well.

“Mabel honey, you’re helping set up the decorations and putting out snacks, no plastic dinosaurs in the punch this year though someone nearly chocked last year and there no way I’m going to give my money to a lawyer to deal with another law suite” Uncle Stan instructed and Mabel gave a salute.

“I can’t make any promises,” Mabel said as everyone in the room rolled their eyes.

Huh? Stan forgot to mention John with Mabel’s list of things to do. Well that’s probably because he’s reading off the same list that he read off every year.

“Wendy! You’re manning the door with Dipper, but since I know you two usually goof off you’ll be taking shifts with John,” Stan finished much to Dipper’s surprise and Mabel’s protest.

“But Uncle Stan this is John’s first Mystery Shack party he can’t miss it!” His sister complained.

“It’ll only be after the half way point when Wendy usually leaves her post,” their Uncle reassured while his sister pouted, oh boy she was going to complain about this later.

Picking up a stack of flyers for the party Stan handed them to John who nearly dropped them from their weight “Since we’ve got an extra worker this year-“Stan began when John interrupted him.

“Mr. Pines I don’t actually work for you.” John told the older man for what had to be the 50th time this past month, but hey what did John expect there was no way the twins Uncle was going to pass up free labor.

“You and Dipper are going to set up those flyers for the party,” Stan instructed, “What?” Dipper complained immediately why was he getting more work that usual?

Stan waked his head with a newspaper like a misbehaving dog before he responded to Dipper’s complaint, “Hey no complaining! Besides this will prepare you for when you and John are manning the door” and Dipper groaned, he was going to get ready for the Ghost Harassers marathon that was showing at midnight.

“Come on” Dipper said tiredly dragging John with him outside the mystery shack.

They started making conversation as they hanged up flyers all around town before eventually moving towards the woods. The conversation was actually pretty good, John was actually fun to talk to.

Dipper could see why his sister liked hanging out with him.

“So why are we hanging these in the woods?” John asked putting another poster on a tree, they had gotten pretty deep in the woods actually. Deeper than Dipper usually went, it wouldn’t surprise him if they saw a consort village soon.

“For consorts walking by, they come to the party too. Those crocodiles are actually pretty good dancers,” Dipper explained while remembering that one year Mabel and Pacifica had both nearly lost the dance off part of the party competition to one.

“I’ll bet,” John said laughing, they kept on putting up flyers and as they got to the last couple they started talking about boxing, recently Stan had offered to teach John how to throw a punch when the older man had learnt that some people would occasionally try to pick fights with him.

“I mean Mabel always looks pretty cool but I’m not sure if I really need to learn how to fight,” John said as Dipper shrugged.

“It could never hurt man, I mean I’ve learned how to fight even though I get into less fights that Mabel,” Dipper replied causing shock to spread on John’s face. “What?” he asked and John began to hold up his hands defensively.

“Nothing, I just can’t really imagine you in a fight,” John explained a smirk clear on the other boys face as if he was picturing it.

“Hey I might not be as strong as Mabel but I’m pretty strong myself!” Dipper said though John still looked unconvinced. Oh it is on! “Okay Mr. Doubter I’ll prove it to you let’s see who can throw a stone the furthest!” Dipper challenged as his eyes drifted towards the pebbles on the ground, John shrugged and picked one up tossing and catching the small stone up in the air a couple of times as if testing its weight.

“You go first,” John said gesturing to Dipper. Dipper handed John what was left of what they used to put up the flyers and picked up a stone and threw it as hard as he could.

It didn’t go very far.

Well there goes his dignity.

There was a moment of silence as both John and Dipper looked at the stone that had landed barley a step away from Dipper when John burst out laughing.

“Oh man that sucked!” John said in-between laughs and Dipper felt his face heat up a bit “seriously!?” Dipper said looking at the stone he had tried to throw while John continued laughing only stopping when Dipper turned to speak to him.

“Okay let’s see you do better!” Dipper challenged as the other boy caught his breath from laughing so much.

“Oh man I don’t know if I can beat that throw!” John joked a smile clear on his face.

“Just throw the stone!” Dipper told him as John began walking up to where Dipper had thrown his own stone and John gave his a throw.

Okay John’s stone went a bit further than Dipper’s sure, okay a lot further and ended up hitting a tree a bit across from them with a large metallic clank.

Huh?

Both boys shared a look of confusion, John not even having the chance to look smug in his victory over their little stone throwing competition.

They walked up to the tree John tapping it with the hammer they had used to nail up the posters the same sound of hitting metal coming out. Dipper didn’t know why but John seemed to like having a hammer in his hand so he let him use it more as they put up posters.

Feeling around the tree Dipper found a compartment that opened up with some weird machine, absentmindedly he started flicking some switches when a door underneath John’s feat started opening up, John quickly stepping back to avoid falling in.

Dipper walked up and looked inside to find a dusted old book, picking up and blowing off the dust Dipper decided to open up the old book with John curiously peering over his shoulder. Reading out loud Dipper turned to the first couple of pages, “it's hard to believe it's been over 2 years since I began working Gravity Falls, Oregon” he read aloud flicking through the books pages,

“What is all this?” Dipper muttered to no one in particular and by the look on John’s face the other boy had no idea what the deal with all of it was either, eventually Dipper landed on a page with a drawing of what looked kind of like a house entitled ‘the entrance of the universe’ and John’s expression went completely blank.

Suddenly a huge gust of wind blew through knocking off Dipper’s lucky hat and carrying it away with it in the process. Dipper tried to grab onto the hat but he was using one hand to keep the book from flying away and the wind was moving too fast and too strong for him to keep up with.

Dipper looked in the direction of where his hat had been carried off into the woods before looking down at the book which was at a new page thanks to the sudden breeze.

"Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I'm being watched. I must hide this book before they find it. Remember: in Gravity Falls there is no one you can trust." Dipper read out before he closed the journal.

“No one you can trust?” John muttered his voice almost as if he was asking a question. The two boys stood in deathly silence until a familiar voice broke it.

“HALLO!”

Both Dipper and John screamed at Mabel's arrival in surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things have gotten kind of busy but I'm going to try and post a chapter at least once a week for this fic since these chapters are shorter than the ones in my other fics, I've already written out the next chapter so I'll post that in a bit. They've found the journal yay!


	7. Chapter 7

Dipper sighed to himself as he waited for John to come, Wendy had gone to check out the party and usually he’d stop selling entrance tickets to go see it too but right now the party that the mystery shack had every year was the last thing on his mind.

Right now he was more concerned with an old journal that he had found in the woods.

According to the journal, Gravity Falls had some sort of dark secret. But what did it all mean? And who was the author who wrote that journal and uncovered all those secrets?

After a bit the writing just stops as if the author mysteriously disappeared. What happened to him? Did he dig too far?

Mabel had made Dipper and John tell her about the journals, for a few seconds he wanted to keep it secret but John started spilling everything in about five seconds. Well it made sense John was one of Mabel’s best friends after all.

Dipper had decided that they should keep the journal a secret for now, he did not was Uncle Stan finding out about it. Dipper loved his Uncle but Stan always thought he was too paranoid for his own good but this journal proved he was right there was something weird about this town!

All his life Dipper had a feeling that there was more to Gravity Falls than met the eye and now he had actual proof that it did!

But whatever secret this town was hiding he was going to uncover it! There would probably be people trying to stop him or whatever so even though he was allowing John and Mabel to tell Candy and Grenda because they insisted and Dipper was probably going to tell Wendy and Soos later it was best not to let that journal fall into anyone else’s hands.

“So how’s it going?” John asked sitting down next to him pulling Dipper out of his thoughts.

“Selling overpriced tickets to people, you?” He replied as John laughed.

“Pretty good, Mabel is having a karaoke contest with that Pacifica girl. You guys were right she is the worst.” John said the truest words that were ever spoken.

“I know right!” Dipper said enthusiastically as he was always up for trash talking Pacifica Northwest. She hadn’t done anything to him personally but she’d been messing with Mabel since they were eight and if that wasn’t reason enough to hate someone he didn’t know what was.

“I can imagine Mabel and Pacifica ending up dating though…” John muttered thoughtfully which caused Dipper to pause because what the heck?!

John seemed to notice that Dipper was looking at him and shrugged and muttered “gay singularity,”

“What?” Dipper said because he understood none of the words that were coming out of John’s mouth as the other boy shrugged again.

“I don’t know man the thought just popped into my head maybe I’m just tiered from the party?” John suggested as Dipper nodded because it was definitely something like that, John was either tiered or dehydrated or had too much sugar because what he was saying was practically crazy.

“So Mabel and I told Candy and Grenda about that weird book we found,” John said suddenly after a few moments of silence thank the gods they were changing topic.

“What did they think?” Dipper asked curiously since this was important, Dipper had already decided that uncovering the journals secrets and finding the author was practically his life mission after all.

John shrugged again “They thought it was weird but kind of exciting and then they started focusing on the party” John told him and Dipper groaned. “Well don’t blame them on that front after all they’d been looking forward to this party for a while right? Let's all enjoy the party tonight and then we'll spend the rest of our lives figuring out all dark mysteries okay?” the other boy continued as Dipper let out a small laugh.

“Frankly thinking about that book kind of gives me a bit of a headache,” John told him and Dipper found himself nodding because yeah there was a lot to think about with that, he already had a thousand questions swirling around in his head and this was just the start!

“So now that I’m here you can go check out the party, I feel kind of bad that your missing most of it.” John said probably staying true to the previous line of thinking that they should act normal and enjoy tonight so they could start getting into the towns mysteries tomorrow but Dipper was too focused on said mysteries that he doubted he’d be able to actually enjoy the party.

“Nah, I’ll keep you company for a bit.” Dipper said and John smiled, they started trying to make small talk after that and were both surprised to find things they had in common out side of Mabel such as they both loved movie classics that for some reason other people thought were bad even though they were clearly cinematic masterpieces.

Dipper told John he wanted to make his own ghost hunting TV show when he was older and to his surprise John was one of the first people who hadn’t made fun of Dipper for it even Mabel poked a little fun at it though she was ultimately supportive of him.

Apparently John thought ghosts were cool too!

“You know most people think wanting to make my own ghost hunting TV show is kind of lame,” Dipper admitted while John looked at him in shock.

“What? No way it’s amazing! Some people just make fun of things for no reason, before I moved here a lot of kids used to make fun of my teeth” John reassured him.

Dipper wasn’t quite sure what compelled him to do what he did next but the words slipped out of his mouth before he even knew what he was doing, “You know, kids used to make fun of my birthmark before I started hiding it all the time.”

“Birthmark?” John asked curiously, oh gods what had he done.

“Uh, no! It's nothing! I-I was-I ah–why did I say that?” Dipper fumbled as John starting smiling.

“No way, dude! Now you have to show me!” John said excitedly and oh man looks like there was no way he was getting out of this, taking a big breath lifted his bangs up to show his forehead, revealing a Big Dipper-like birthmark.

When he turned his gaze towards John he noticed the other boy staring at his forehead intently with fascination in his eyes he had leaned in closer probably for a better look and it almost looked like John wanted to touch the birthmark.

The two sat in silence for a few moments neither looking as if they knew what to do next.

“The Big Dipper…” John said and after a few seconds whatever spell the two of them had been under broke suddenly as John’s eyes widened in realization.

“That's how you got your nickname! I thought your parents just hated you or something!” John suddenly shouted as he made the realization throwing Dipper off a bit.

Dipper let his bangs fall back over his birthmark smiling a bit to himself when he noticed John looking at him “What?” Dipper asked.

“I just noticed that you an Mabel have a bit of a star theme going on,” John stated with a goofy grin.

“We do?” Dipper wondered because he’d never really noticed that but John nodded at him enthusiastically.

“Yeah! You have a constellation birth mark, Mabel's favorite sweater has a shooting star and you had that green hat with a star on it,” John explained as Dipper’s own eyes widened in realization. Oh wow that was a lot of star themed things that they hadn’t really planned.

“Don’t tell Mabel that or she might go all in with a star theme,” Dipper joked causing John to laugh, and promise that he wouldn’t tell Mabel. Dipper sighed and rested his chin on his hand, “Well I don’t really have that star hat anymore though,” he said thinking about his lucky hat that got blown away in the wind.

“It was my lucky hat too…” he muttered, they’d tried looking for it before going back to the shack but they had absolutely no luck finding it, it was fine though he’d only started wearing a hat to hide his birthmark and he’d get a replacement eventually.

At that moment John stood up, “I’ll be right back!” he said before running off.

Well that was a thing that happened, Dipper sighed to himself as he was left manning the door alone again.

\---

John was able to able to find Stan pretty easily and ask him if it was okay to buy something he needed from the gift shop the adults reply was “heck kid I’d never stop someone from giving me their money” so with that John set out to get the thing he needed.

Dipper had shown him his birthmark, which was seriously the coolest thing ever, why the heck would he ever want to hide it?

But John could understand that people were jerks, which sucked because Dipper was great! Honestly he was a bit worried about being alone with him since it looked like they might not have anything in common outside of Mabel but it turned out they had a bunch of stuff to talk about!

They both liked the same movies and thought ghosts were cool! Dipper even wanted to start his own ghost hunting show how cool was that?

John actually used to want to be a comedian but no way would mom ever let him do something like that.

Picking up what he had been looking for and leaving some money on the counter John made his way back to Dipper.

“Hey sorry to keep you waiting, here you go” John said holding out what he got for Dipper, he’s not sure he’d call it a present or anything maybe a gift since he did get it from the shacks gift shop.

“A hat?” Dipper said looking confused as he stared at the hat still in John’s hands.

“Yeah you lost your old hat, and I thought you might like a replacement and your Uncle let me buy this; it’s not star themed and I’m not sure if it’s lucky but it’s got a Pine tree on it and your last name is Pines so that can work as a pun!” he explained as Dipper rolled his eyes.

“Thanks,” Dipper muttered putting on the hat. It actually looked pretty cool on him. “That should do the trick, but you know John this hat is from the Shack’s gift shop I probably could have just taken it myself when I wanted a new hat you didn’t have to spend your money” Dipper told him and John groaned putting his hands to his face.

“Yeah well, I wanted to replace it since I feel bad for not grabbing your other hat when it flew away,” John explained, and Dipper laughed and shook his head.

“You don’t need to worry about that man, that hat flew away before anyone knew what do to,” Dipper reassured him but John still felt a bit guilty. Funnily enough he kind of felt guilty for the wind that blew the hat away in the first place.

It wasn’t like the wind could be his fault but for some reason John felt like it was.

“Hey, the party is nearly over so I don’t think anyone else is going to come and buy tickets do you want to bail?” Dipper asked him suddenly and John nodded.

“Sure want to head over to the party?” John asked though it was probably dying down by now but to his surprise he found Dipper shaking his head.

“Let me show you something” Dipper said as he led John though the gift shop to a ladder that led up to the roof.

“Wow! It’s really cool up here,” John marveled as Dipper got out two Pitt Cola’s from a cooler and handed John one.

“Yeah, Wendy likes to sneak up here to slack off and I like to come up here to think and look at stars.” Dipper explained and John found himself smirking because there was the mention of stars again.

“That’s pretty cool,” John, told him before gazing up at the stars, since Gravity Falls was far away from any big cities you could see the stars really clearly. It was kind of breath taking in a way “hey you should bring a telescope up here,” John suggested as Dipper raised an eyebrow at him.

“I do sometimes,” the other boy told him opening his drink and the two clinked there cans together before sitting down and looking at the stars.

It was pretty nice; they started throwing pine cones at a target Wendy had apparently made John won of course, they also spent a lot of time looking at the stars as Dipper pointed out all the constellations to him.

Overall it was a pretty nice evening, neither realized how late it had gotten until Mabel showed up.

“There you two are! The party is over you dorks!” Mabel said interrupting their time on the roof.

John left with Mabel as she began telling him how her yearly battle with Pacifica went and started helping everyone clear up.

After everything John was kind of tiered but he was looking forward to whatever Mabel had planned for the sleepover when he noticed that there was a bunch of food spread out throughout the living room.

“Hey man,” Dipper said as he sat down on the couch, 

“What with the feast?” he asked as Dipper put some popcorn down next to him before answering.

“There is a ghost harassers marathon tonight where they are showing the entire first season,” Dipper explained excitedly.

Oh man Dipper liked Ghost Harassers too!

“I love that show, I’m having the marathon taped,” John excitedly explained catching Dipper’s attention.

“Hey we could watch some of it together right now if you want?” Dipper suggested as John nodded excitedly.

Sitting down next to Dipper John waited for the series marathon to start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the new chapter, with a mention of Mabifica and the start of a little crack ship I like to call Johndip. I have my reasons. Anyway Dipper has got his Pine tree hat, John was the one to give it to him since John has a habit of giving important gifts to friends.
> 
> Such as giving Jade seeds that got sent back in time and started her love for gardening, getting Rose to start knitting which she would later use the needles for as her weapon and Dave his shades (and eventually he'd going to give Mabel her first scrapbook, spoilers)


	8. Chapter 8

They were doing a ‘best moments’ segment before the marathon started, some of the stuff John had seen before and some of the stuff he didn’t recognize. All of the stuff was awesome though.

“Hey I don’t recognize that guy,” John noted as he tried to get some popcorn from the bowl Dipper was holding, the other boy swatted his hand away before answering.

“Ugh, that guy! Never really liked him, he was only in one season, I have no idea what they’re doing putting anything from the fourth season in the best moments real!” Dipper stated.

“Huh, wow is he really that bad?” John found himself asking as Dipper shrugged.

“Depends who your asking, I guess.” Dipper told him as John finally managed to get a handful of popcorn. The other boy gave a slight glare but John just stuck his tongue out at Dipper.

Dipper really needed to learn how to share snacks, he was worse than Mabel.

John threw a piece of popcorn up into the air and tried to catch it with his mouth. He missed and the piece fell on top of his glasses causing Dipper to laugh.

“So how many seasons are there?” John said attempting to throw and catch the popcorn again, after a moment he was pretty sure it landed in his hair this time.

“The sixteenth season is coming up this summer, you didn’t know that?” Dipper asked and this time it was John’s turn to shrug.

“Kinda, I just found this show when I moved here but it’s amazing though!” John explained excitedly catching more of Dipper’s attention as the other boy leaned forward excitedly.

“I know right!? You know I have some box sets for a couple of the seasons I could lend them to you if you like, or hey we can watch them here sometime whenever you come over!” Dipper offered and John was sure he heard excitement on the other boys voice though that could just be him projecting his own excitement.

“Oh man really?” John asked excitedly because that would be the best thing ever, he only got around an hour and a half of TV time at home so it would probably be better watching it here.

“Yeah, what seasons have you seen so far?” Dipper asked but before John had the chance to answer him Mabel walked in.

“John! Hey there you are!” Mabel said excitedly running over to him, she started looking at the junk food Dipper had spread around the living room and grabbed some stuff such as one of the Pizza boxes despite the fact that Mabel had ordered her own Pizza for the sleep over.

But you know John couldn’t really judge; you could never have enough Pizza after all.

“I’ll be taking these thank you,” Mabel said ignoring her brother’s protests. “We’re going to need these” Mabel stated as she met John’s gaze.

“Come on Mabel, seriously?” Dipper complained as Mabel laughed a little to herself.

“Come on John we have everything set up,” Mabel told him ignoring her brother. John’s eyes widened in realization as he remembered the entire reason he was staying the night at the mystery shack.

“Oh right!” John exclaimed, oh man he’d gotten so caught up with how amazing Ghost Harassers were that it completely slipped his mind that he was supposed to be having his first sleep over right about now.

He had actually really been looking forward to it; he’d never been to a sleep over after. It’s not like he had any friends close enough to have them before or that he was popular enough to be invited to one before coming to Gravity Falls and meeting Mabel. 

Mabel had invited him a bunch of times before for past sleep overs but for some reason his mom always said no because he was a boy and Mabel was a girl, even though that excuse made no sense to anyone other than his mother. Seriously John couldn’t see what the problem was.

But there was no disagreeing with his mother, trust him. So when Mabel said that she had found a loophole he’d been really excited even though he wasn’t entirely sure how it would go.

But Dipper had turned out to be really fun and he kind of wanted to stay and watch the Ghost Harassers marathon.

John made the movement to get up but his eyes drifted over towards the TV when Dipper suddenly spoke up.

“Hey Mabel, is it okay if John stays we were kind of going to watch the Ghost Harassers marathon together,” Dipper said grabbing both John and Mabel’s attention.

“What really?” Mabel said looking at John and he nodded enthusiastically.

“Can I Mabel? We can always have another sleepover later right?” He asked and Mabel looked thoughtful before a confident look spread across her face.

“Yeah! We’re going to have lots of sleepovers later on!” Mabel said excitedly as John chimed in with his own excited ‘yeah!’

“So can John stay and watch with me?” Dipper asked as Mabel smiled though it wasn’t big as her usual smiles.

“Yeah sure, you can go watch the nerdy ghost hunter show with Dipper,” she told him. John should have been excited but there was a sort of off feeling that he couldn’t get shrug off.

“Are you sure Mabel?” Dipper asked voicing John’s own concern.

The two boys gave Mabel a slight look as she blew a raspberry at them. “Yes I’m sure! You two have fun tonight but remember John you’re going to have a bunch of fun with us in sleepovers future!” Mabel announced before running out the room to tell Candy and Grenda that John was staying down here tonight.

There was a few seconds of silence after she left; Mabel brought so much energy into a room that whenever she stepped out it self like something was missing. Mabel was the kind of person who put her soul into everything; it’s one of the reasons why she was basically John’s best friend.

“What do you think she means by ‘fun’?” Dipper asked/ muttered breaking the silence.

“I suddenly regret everything.” John stated thinking of whatever horrors the girls could possibly be planning in the attic causing Dipper to let out a laugh.

They started talking about random junk in-between watching TV eventually John did actually manage to catch a piece of popcorn in his mouth, he cheered and Dipper gave him a well earned round of applause.

Eventually the marathon started, John isn’t entirely sure when he fell asleep but he woke up to the sound of a couple camera clicks.

Usually most people had a hard time getting up, John was kind of one of those people, after hearing the found of giggling he opened his eyes to find Mabel, Candy and Grenda standing in front of him taking pictures. Of course he said the only thing anyone really every says when they wake up.

“Huh?” John muttered as Mabel took a picture with her camera.

“This one is going to go on my wall!” Mabel declared, Mabel had a bunch of pictures and little crafts she all over her room and hanging on her walls, frankly it seemed kind of messy there had to be a better place to put them all.

“You two looked so cute in your sleep!” Grenda announced, her voice causing Dipper to stir. It was them that John realized that Dipper’s head was resting on his shoulder.

In his surprise John practically leapt off the couch causing Dipper to wake up and the girls in the room to laugh.

“Ah did we fall asleep during the marathon?” Dipper asked rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

“Boy did you ever!” Mabel said grinning from ear to ear as Candy showed a picture on her phone of John and Dipper asleep on each other.

“I will make you internet famous!” she told them happily as John and Dipper fully awake now stared at the picture.

“Delete that!”

\---

Mabel Pines wasn’t really a person who got jealous especially not of her brother! They were twins after all they were used to sharing! 

Mabel loved sharing! Sharing was caring! She and Dipper shared stuff all the time: rooms, birthdays, toys, and ice cream, you name it!

But this was the first time they’d ever had to share a person.

Well that’s not exactly true, Wendy and Soos was both of the twins friends it’s just that John was one of her people!

Ever since the party John and Dipper had kind of bonded, which was great! She loved two of her favorite boys getting along! And it was nice to see Dipper make some friends their own age but sometimes she was worried about loosing her friend and her brother.

It was ridiculous, she knew that but she still couldn’t help be bothered by it sometimes.

The worry started a few days after Dipper had gotten his new hat; she had asked him if he had taken it from the gift shop to replace his old lucky hat when he told her that John had actually bought it for him as a replacement.

John still spent a bunch of time with her but now he was also spending a bunch of time with Dipper, now he only spent half the sleepovers with her and the girls and the rest with Dipper though she supposes that it’s better than when John couldn’t come to any of the sleepovers.

Bluh this was the worse! Dipper was allowed to have other friends besides her and so was John! Why was this bothering her?

Maybe she wasn’t as good at sharing as she thought?

Right now she was doing homework with John and they were just about to finish, the next day was the weekend and Dipper wanted to explore the area in the woods where he and John found that weird old book.

They were uncovering mysteries which was very serious so Dipper had given them a long boring lecture on getting all the homework and junk out the way so they could spend the next few days ‘uncovering the secrets of the town’.

“Oh man, it’s getting late it’s a good thing we’re pretty much done!” John said finishing up the last couple of questions on the work sheet before getting up.

Mabel stretched after she had copied the last question off John, what? He finished before she did.

“Homework is so boring!” she complained causing John to laugh.

“Oh man I know how you feel, well I better get going I’ll see you tomorrow for the mystery hunt Mabel.” John said getting ready to leave before he suddenly stopped as his eyes widened in realization.

“Oh man I can’t believe I almost forgot!” John suddenly said as he started rummaging through his backpack as Mabel looked at him curiously until eventually he pulled out a blue box and handed it to Mabel. “This is for you, I should probably get going if I want to get back before mom gets home see yeah,” John said making his way out.

John came over so often that sometimes it felt like he practically lived at the shack, Mabel liked that; she was really happy when things got to the point where everyone was comfortable with John coming and going.

Mabel smiled to herself as her started opening the box, oh yeah-present time baby!

Inside was what looked like a large book and a letter picking up the letter she began to read what it said.

Dear Mabel,   

I just want to say that you’ve been an amazing friend ever since I moved here and I think it’s safe to say there is no one else as fun as you anywhere. You always have so much love to give and I’m so happy that I get to be one of ‘your people’ and just so you know you’re ‘my people’ too. And I’m really glad we met and that the first friend I made here was you.

I wanted to get you something to say thank you for everything you’ve done for me but I don’t think anything I could give you would be nearly as cool as what you’ve given me! Anyway I tried and got you a scrapbook to put in all those pictures and little crafts you have since I figured that this would be better than just having them all over the room and hanging on your walls. Hey maybe you could even turn scrap-booking into a hobby. You always seem like you have unlimited energy so you could put some of it to learning something new and cool!

Anyway, I hope you like it this is way cooler than that hat I gave Dipper at least. Man I don’t know what I’m going to get you when Birthday’s and Holiday’s roll around! I know this might seem kind of sudden but it’s been a couple of months since I moved here and your basically my best friend and I wanted you to know your important to me.

Stay amazing Mabel!

  ~ghostyTrickster    
(John)

Mabel smiled as she read through the letter; there were a couple of drawings of stars around it with some scribbled comments from John calling his drawings bad even though they were beautiful!

This was the best gift ever! She liked the reference to the GT chumhandle; she thought it was cool how all three of them had a GT chumhandle.

She was glitteryTurnaround Dipper was galvanicTactician and John was ghostyTrickster.  

They were the three GT’s!

What the heck had she been worried about? John was one of her best friends and so was Dipper! Her two favorite boys got along and it was way better with the three of them all together!

With a smile the first thing she added to the scrapbook was John’s letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this weeks chapter, we get Mabel's insecurities and John being a sweet heart who gets his friends thoughtful and heart felt gifts when he can tell something is wrong but doesn't know what and wants to cheer them up. I wanted to write a letter from John to Mabel like the letters John wrote to the other beta kids, I hope it sounded in character. 
> 
> Next chapter has plot! Are you ready? Are you excited?


	9. Chapter 9

Mabel spent all night moving her pictures and crafts into the scrapbook John got her, she’d spent nearly all of dinner showing it off to Dipper and Stan. Clearly she had gotten the best gift ever!

She was definitely going to make scrapbooking one of her things, it was clearly meant for her! How had she never gotten into it before? Mabel had a plan to get a book about scrapbooking from the town’s library as soon as she could but right now she was basically doing whatever she liked with John’s scrapbook.

She was putting her heart and soul into this thing!

It actually looked really nice, she decided to theme the book around what was important to her, filled with pictures of family and friends. Her favourite was one she had taken a bit after John had first moved to Gravity Falls; she had grabbed John and Dipper and pulled them to each side of her while Stan had taken the picture, per her request.

They were all acting kind of silly in the picture which is what made it perfect. She was sticking her tongue out and making a funny face, Dipper had two fingers behind her head giving her bunny ears which she didn’t realize until after the picture was taken and John was laughing at the twin’s shenanigans the picture taken before he had a chance to pose himself.

John had been annoyed by that saying he wanted to do his own funny pose but Mabel loved this picture, the dorkiness was so John. She put it at the center of the scrap book. She’d given Stan a copy of the picture as a thank you for him taking it in the first place, she didn’t know what he did with it but she knew that he probably had it stored away some place safe.

One thing she knew about her Uncle Stan was he loved his family, and Mabel knew that family wasn’t just people you were related to family was people that you cared about and Soos, Wendy and John were just as much her family to her as Stan and Dipper were.

Once Mabel was happy with what she had done she decided to fish out that sylladex.

Sylladex’s weren’t very commonly used it is merely a way of carrying a lot of different items at once. Useful if you don’t want to carry a heavy bag but most people thought they were more trouble than they were worth because things could fall out of them or get stuck under cards ect.

So even if they were kind of cool most people just used bags, but at everyone had an array modus at least. John when he first moved here seemed to use his sylladex more than anyone she had ever seen, he said it just felt normal to him but after a while he started just carrying things and putting stuff down when he wasn’t using them and normally picking things up like a sensible person.

He used what he called Queuestack Array modus where he used a Modus Control Deck to combine a Stack, Queue, and Array Modi.

There used to be a thing in like grandparents old people time, were there was something that let you personalise your sylladex. There was a button that let you combine it according to whatever item you paired it with but that just led to weird combinations that no one could ever figure out so it fell out of fashion.

A while ago for their birthday Stan had gotten the twins that antique as a gift, probably because it was cheap. Both Mable and Dipper had complained about it at the time but now she was glad that she had gotten it.

Dipper decided he might as well use it and made a ‘Conspiracy Board Modus’. Dipper can captchalogue any item as long as he can make a connection between it and another item on the board. When Dipper captchalogues an item the card is put on the board a red thread linking the card of the item he just captchalogued and the card with the item he linked it to. The problem with using it was that it could lead to some pretty obscure connections.

Mabel had made fun of it, saying he was already too much of a conspiracy nut but it did kind of fit her brother even if Stan joked about the thing possibly making Dipper even more of a conspiracy theorist.

Funnily enough she hadn’t made her own personalized modus yet, usually she’d jump at the chance to get creative put nothing really felt right. Now something did!

Mabel smiled to herself as she carefully went through the process to turn her customising sylladex thing into a ‘Scrap Book Modus’.

She spent the next few hours fiddling with it trying to figure it out but it turned out to be fairly self-explanatory when Mabel captchalogues an item the card is put into a scrap book. Items that are similar or have a similar theme will be found on the same page. It worked similar to an Array Modus where Mabel could access cards fairly easily by simply finding the item on the right page. However if an item didn’t fit the scrap books ‘theme’ the modus would regret the item and will not allow Mabel to captchalogue it.

That was kind of frustrating but also kind of fun, maybe she could convince the others to make using a sylladex a more common thing?

Turning to the clock in the living room where she had been working Mabel glanced at the time, yikes!

She’d been up long enough that it was starting to look less like it was late and more like it was early. Running up to her and her brother’s shared bedroom being careful not to wake Dipper, Mabel went to bed to try and get some sleep but from the looks of things she probably wouldn’t get much.

She’s going to get less shut eye tonight than Dipper normally does and trust her that is saying something!

\---

Dipper was so excited it was hard to sleep but he managed some shut eye, if he didn’t get at least some amount of sleep and got too sleep deprived he started chewing on his shirt.

Today was the day that they were going to start uncovering the mysteries off Gravity Falls!

Personally he wanted to get started on it sooner but finding the right time to start turned out to be kind of hard, when he told Wendy about the journal she warned him not to rush off and get himself hurt.

She was right though not in the way she probably meant, he did have to be careful but not for safety reasons but because he had to be smart about how he was going to go about this!

There was some sort of conspiracy going on in town, though he didn’t know what. There was a dark past maybe a mysterious organization? Whatever was going on he had to be careful about it he couldn’t let the wrong person find out about this that could lead to people getting in his way.

Above all he had to make sure that Stan didn’t find out about the journal, his uncle was always telling him that the town was normal heck boring even and that everything was in his head. That even if there was something strange going on it would be better to leave it alone than just go looking for trouble.

His Uncle would probably try and stop his from looking into the town’s dark side, he might even take the journal away from him or worse turn the journal into some kind of tourist attraction.

No way was Dipper letting that happen.

Dipper had to be careful not just with his Uncle but with the whole town, the journal had warned him that there was no one he could trust.

Though personally Dipper thought that at least he could trust Mabel who had been his best friend since birth basically, they handled everything together. And he probably could trust John as well since John wasn’t the kind of guy who’d betray anybody.

After getting ready he decided to wake up his sister, Mabel had been up all night doing stuff with the scrapbook John had gotten her. It looked like that was going to be a thing of hers now but Mabel seemed happier than she ever had in the last couple of weeks so no matter how chaotic this got Dipper decided that scrapbooking couldn’t lead to anything bad really.

Mabel swatted his hand away as he tried to wake her up “Mabel wake up. Come on, we can’t waste today,” he told her as she pulled her blanket over her head.

“No. Never. Let me sleep forever.” His sister said sleepily as Dipper found himself sighing.

If this was the other way round and Mabel had to wake him up, she’d probably just pull the blanket off him but he thought if he did that to her she’d probably punch him.

With a sigh he decided to try waking her up later after he had some breakfast, maybe she’d wake herself up?

He was halfway through his cereal when there was a knock on the door and a ready and dressed Mabel bolted down the stairs. She must have gotten up a bit after he left their bed room.

Dipper noticed his sister was moving a bit more slowly than usual but he guesses that she was just tiered. It was rare for him to be the twin with the better sleeping habits after all.

He was a bit of a mess like that, he’ll admit.

Mabel answered the door where John was waiting, since John was the person Dipper liked the most out of Mabel’s friends he was happy that the other boy had been the first to show up. Clearly John understood just how important this all was.

To be honest Dipper had been spending a lot of time with John the past few weeks, they kind of clicked. There was something about the other boy that let Dipper connect maybe John just had that friendly kind of presence. The only other person Dipper had felt comfortable around that was his own age was Mabel but he didn’t seem to have any problem hanging around John.

Also he and John liked a lot of the same stuff and it’s always great to talk about things with someone who gets it or doesn’t think you’re nerdy for liking it.

In fact lately Dipper had been considering John less as just Mabel’s friend and more his friend as well.

Dipper checked the supplies he wanted to bring such as flashlights and compasses and maps etc. Anything needed while a group of five kids and Soos wandered the woods. Wendy had wanted to come as well but she was doing family stuff this weekend and she admitted that Soos was probably adult supervision enough.

She seemed convinced that they’d get hurt if they went off on their own but he was pretty sure they were ready for this.

He was kind of a mystery expert after all.

While Dipper was making the necessary preparations, Mabel and John were eating cereal. Mabel had insisted that John had some since all he had at his own house was ‘boring adult cereal’ according to Mabel, it just meant they were all healthy bland cereal with no colour which Mabel was horrified by and even Dipper admitted that he’d rather have kids cereal even if he did was to grow up.

Though Mabel put syrup on her already sugary cereal so that couldn’t really be healthy.

When they were finally finished Dipper answered the door as the last of their party arrived. Candy had arrived with a weapon and Grenda had punched and nearly broken the door in their excitement to face ‘any enemies that come before me’ according to Candy.

Sometimes Mabel’s friends scared him.

After John convinced Candy to leave the weapon and Soos prepared his truck they drove out to the part of the woods where he had found the journal.

The first order of business it was decided was that they should investigate the area.

He stated looking at the soil with Candy helping him collect samples in case the dirt could tell them anything, probably it would be kind of pointless but who knows maybe it could turn out that the soil was actually from a different part of town and lead them to their next clue.

John and Mabel, the best climbers in the group were climbing up the old trees. One, to get a bird’s eye view of the surrounding area and two, to see if there were any other metal trees around here.

Dipper had made John stick close to Mabel after his sister kept looking at birds’ nests looking for baby birds instead of clues that they had actually came here for but Dipper was starting to feel like the two might distract each other.

“Find anything interesting yet?” Dipper called up waiting for an answer as John yelled down.

“Mabel found some really cool stuff in birds’ nests,” John replied and Dipper had to fight back a groan.

“You guys take this seriously!” he complained as he heard Mabel boo him from a bit above John.

“We are! What if those shiny things could be a clue?” John defended in a fake insulted tone.

“Relax Dipper we know what we’re doing-“Mabel seconded when a sound of a snap interrupted her, looking up Dipper noticed that the tree branch Mabel was on was beginning to break. It looked big enough to support her weight but this tree was old.

“Mabel!” he called up worriedly as his sister began to take out the grappling hook she kept on the belt of her skirt hidden underneath her sweater.

 

But his sister was tiered and dropped it trying to get it out and the grappling hook fell to the ground near him.

Grabbing Mabel’s grappling hook Dipper started making his way to the base of the tree, determined to climb up. That grappling hook was like his sisters safety net in case anything went wrong and now she didn’t have it.

Dipper looked up to check on his sister and saw John reaching out his hand to her to get her onto a safer branch. Just as Mabel grabbed John’s hand the branch completely broke and Gravity pulled Dipper’s twin downwards taking John with her.

“NO!” he shouted even though there was nothing he could do, a fall from that height could seriously hurt them!

 

Despite himself Dipper shut his eyes as he waited for the found of his twin and his friend to hit the ground, they’d have to get them to the hospital as soon as possible Soos could carry them to the truck.

But when he didn’t hear anything no cry of pain nothing, Dipper carefully opened one of his eyes. He saw Candy, Grenda and Soos looking up in amazement and when Dipper looked up himself his jaw fell open.

John was holding Mabel kind of bridal style he must have pulled her close as they fell, but that was not what was surprising Dipper he expected John would try and grab and protect Mabel. What was amazing to Dipper and everyone else was something else.  
Over the ground halfway from where John and Mabel fell from…

John was flying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter was a little late, I was really busy during this week. So the plot I promised was that John can fly! Yay! Also a bit more world building on Mabel's end, I'm thinking about the next chapter being an intermission because in the traditional homestuck fashion there needs to be an intermission once things start getting interesting


	10. Intermission 1

Perhaps Rose should have realized that something was very, very wrong the moment that she woke up crying. But it had been four years since the game, four years since they ever had to face any real danger and four years for them all to grow complacent.

Of course Jane faced the occasional assassination attempt but those were quickly and easily dealt with and Jane never seemed to mind, in fact the other girl seemed to view the various acts on her life as perfectly normal, something to be expected. Most likely this viewpoint came from Jane’s childhood of assassination attempts.

It was quite fascinating how caviler the Maid of Life could be when someone tried to kill her though Rose guesses there was no threat when there was a large emphasis of the ‘tried’ part. Besides Jane had ended up as a prominent figure in the world they had made, she owned a company, she was mayor of the entire human population, it was natural to think that every now and again groups would go after her.

The same with Jake who also had done quite well for himself, though Dirk always made sure no harm would ever actually come to Jake not that the page couldn’t take care of himself.

It was natural to think that when gods entered society there would be some upheaval though not much, every now and then Rose would hear a complaint about the fact that she a human bared such a prominent figure of authority when helping out with the troll kinds young.

It was natural to think there would be some that did not love the gods but it was not natural to think there could be a threat to them; after all they’d fought monsters that could destroy universes. They had no reason to ever feel as if they were facing any danger, they were at peace. They had no reason to feel as if John could be in danger…

When it happened, or rather when Rose first realized something was wrong she woke up crying, it had been a long time since she had to actually use her powers as a Seer of Light but when she woke, she felt them just as she once did on that meteor telling her something was in play that something was happening but it didn’t tell her what that something was.

That would be for her to figure out.

Unable to push the feeling of unease down and go back to the bliss of sleep Rose decided to go downstairs and make herself some coffee because why not she wasn’t sleeping anytime soon.

Being careful not to wake Kanaya, Rose crept downstairs and checked her phone while she waited for the water to boil, looking at the time it was around 3 A.M the date was the 14th of April.

Shit, she’d forgotten about John’s birthday.

She felt bad about that; she’ll have to make it up to him later by sending him a message at a more reasonable hour. It had been a while since the two of them had talked she should find time to meet up and catch up with him, she barely ever saw him outside of group meet ups now days.

Rose tried to ignore a little whisper in her head telling her that she would not get that chance and promptly told herself to shut up.

It seems as though John had put up a few pictures at the start of his birthday before going silent online, which was clearly not ominous at all! After all being absent from your phone for a while was no cause for alarm or a feeling of dread to settle over her.

Ignoring the fact that it was early, she texted John wishing him a late happy birthday and apologized for not doing it sooner while also asking if he wanted to meet up later. Rose tried to ignore the feeling that John would never see her message.

She gave him a week to reply, he never did and sometimes she would find herself thinking of John in the past tense.

He was fine, Rose kept telling herself that but it couldn’t hurt to get some extra confirmation. 

\---

Jade didn’t really know what to think when Rose suddenly called her up but she was always happy to hear from her friend, Rose was always so busy being all happily married to Kanaya and all that Jade barely heard from her some times.

It started out like a normal phone call, the whole “hey Rose how have you been?” and usually Rose would reply that she’d been fine in her usual fond tone and then they’d talk about all the stuff they’ve been up to with their lives and maybe later they might decide to meet up for coffee or something fun like that

Only this time Rose’s voice was shaky and concerned, “Jade I’m sorry if this sounds unexpected but have you heard from John recently?” the other girl asked her and Rose was right that was kind of unexpected.

Jade frowned in concentration as she tried to think of the last time she’d spoken to John, she spent as much time with him as she could, he was her brother after all though to be honest that wasn’t a lot Dave and Karkat tended to keep her busy.

“Hmm, I guess it’s been a while. I sent him a message on his birthday but he didn’t reply though I guess it was a bit late in the day” Jade answered as Rose hummed thoughtfully on the other end of the phone, “Is something wrong?” Jade asked because she was starting to get the feeling that her friend was concerned about something.

“I’m not sure… it’s just a feeling… Are you sure that you haven’t heard anything from John?” Rose asked again and Jane found herself feeling a little concerned herself, it wasn’t like Rose to get so worried but then again Jade hadn’t heard from John in a while.

John always messaged his friends especially Dave and Karkat but a few days ago Dave off handedly mentioned that John was taking ages to reply to a picture they sent him but they all just thought that John was busy, they were all busy it was part of growing up.

“No, I can ask Dave and Karkat if they’ve heard from him but he’s probably just busy right?” Jade asked; she was met with a silence on the other end of the phone for a few minutes.

That silence lasted a few more seconds before she heard Rose mutter “I hope so…” it was so low and inaudible Jade was sure Rose was talking to herself instead of her, after saying that Rose raised her voice to directly talk to Jade, “thank you Jade, I’ll let you know if anything changes.” Rose said before saying her goodbyes.

Jade frowned to herself once the conversation ended and immediately started messaging John telling him to go talk to Rose because their friend was worried about something and might want to talk to him.

John never replied.

\---

Dave shouldn’t be this fucking nervous going to his best bro’s house but for some reason he was, it’s just the moment he stepped onto the fucking premises he got the feeling something had happened here, he couldn’t put his finger on what though.

He tried shaking it off though and telling himself it was just Rose’s paranoia messing with his head, Rose always did like to mess with him what were siblings for? But he doubted that she’d joke about this.

It started with Jade telling him and Karkat during dinner that Rose had been acting kind of weird and asking about John and Jade was getting worried as well because John hadn’t replied to her message.

Dave had tried contacting Egbert himself asking what his deal was and telling him it wasn’t right to make the ladies worried, like you just don’t do it even if chivalry is dead have some basic decency you know? 

But John didn’t reply despite the amazing rant that Dave had left for him, he frowned at the possibility of John ignoring him before deciding to pester Rose; after all Dave hadn’t gotten the chance to be the annoying brother in a while.

\-- turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering tentacleTherapist [TT] -- 

TG: hey so did you have a fight with john or some shit  
TG: like how come he hasn’t been answering my messages  
TG: or jades  
TG: or karkats  
TG: ignoring karkat is like kicking a puppy  
TG: it just not something you do  
TG: one of the greatest taboos   
TG: worse than human transmutation  
TG: fuck someone call dirk that was a kick ass anime reference  
TG: full metal was such a good anime where the heck is the earth c version  
TG: like fuck what kind of universe doesnt have its own versions of the anime classics  
TG: not one id want to be part of thats for sure  
TG: i’ll have to check with dirk back on that one if any one knows it will be the anime prince himself  
TG: thats his new official title btw  
TT: I’ll be sure to keep that in mind  
TG: so yeah whats the deal with you asking about john  
TG: why are you investigating to jade  
TG: i thought jane was the detective  
TT: I don’t doubt Jane’s investigating skills, I’ve just been having a feeling lately  
TG: feeling   
TG: like what  
TT: I’m not completely sure but if I was being honest  
TT: …   
TT: Like in the game

Dave suddenly felt himself unable to respond because what the fuck!? What the fuck!? Shit he thought they were done with this bullshit, haven’t they given enough to that fucking game?

His phone buzzed with more messages and shit he hadn’t even realized that he had dropped his phone in shock, thank fuck no one saw that. Trying to calm the shakiness of his hands he picked up his phone and looked at what else Rose had said.

TT: I can’t be sure though  
TT: It’s probably nothing but I think I would feel better if I saw John, just to make sure he’s okay.  
TG: cool  
TG: party at egberts place then

He insisted on coming with Rose when she went to John’s house so did Jade, whatever feeling Rose was having was putting everyone on edge and he hated it. It was fine John probably had been busy lately even though John being the guy that was never too busy for his friends was kind of John’s whole thing really.

You’d think after everything they’d been through they wouldn’t be so on edge when a friend stops messaging them but firstly its John and secondly this caught them off guard.

They were supposed to be done.

“Holy shit I can’t believe that he actually never took down that banner,” you say when the three of you arrived, Karkat had wanted to come to but Karkat had a kingdom to run besides since the three of them were visiting John it was like getting the original team back together.

Like fuck yeah the band’s back together for a reunion tour or some shit.

Jade and Rose rolled their eyes when you pointed out the banner “honestly I can’t believe he never took it down!” Jade complained in a fond tone of voice, Dave didn’t really get while it was still up there Rose said something about maybe John being sentimental and keeping it up for the good memories it represented but Dave figures John probably thought taking it down was more trouble than it was worth. It might be a mix of both reasons though.

All three of them had a key and Jade even knew where John hid the spare key so after Jade unlocked the door you all entered the house. However the feeling of the house was like no one had been there for a while.

“Maybe he’s out?” Jade suggested while Rose suddenly started looking through John’s stuff despite the protest of both Dave and Jade.

“God damn Lalonde at least wait five minutes before getting your snoop on,” Dave complained while his twin rolled her eyes at him as if she didn’t have time for his shenanigans. Dave took this as a little bit unfair since she was the one who was going through their friends stuff not him!

But then eventually he gave in and started looking through stuff as well, Dave told himself that this wasn’t really snooping like Rose, he was just entertaining himself until John came back from wherever the fuck he was and they could all have a chat.

John never came home; Dave found an open window, Jade found John’s smashed phone, Rose found evidence of some kind of fight outside of John’s house. None of them found John.

\---

Karkat was really fucking worried, none of them knew what happened to John all they knew was that he was gone. God fucking damn it what was John doing making them all worried like this!?

Harley kept on blaming herself saying that if she had just visited John on his birthday like she usually did then she would have been there to stop whatever made him go missing from happening, she wouldn’t listen to anyone who told her that it wasn’t her fault, that she could have gone missing too.

Fuck this was all probably his fault somehow, you think he’d learned his lesson by now with all the friends he’d already lost.

He really fucking hoped that John was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week I thought we'd check back with the remaining three beta kids and Karkat. I'm thinking about maybe having an intermission every ten chapters or so but we'll see. Next intermission will probably be the alpha kids but before that we'll be going back to the main story line next week where in the small town of Gravity Falls a young man and his friends freak out over him being able to fly.


	11. Chapter 11

Sometimes Dipper had to take a look at his life and realize that it wasn’t normal. These moments usually happened when his sister was doing something like shoving gummy worms up her nose or his uncle was trying to teach a bear to drive.

They didn’t usually happen when he was watching his sister and his sister’s friend/ his friend fly over the ground, because well that sort of thing hadn’t ever really happened before.

Dipper watched as John and Mabel slowly lowered to the ground, everyone standing there in silence. It didn’t look like anyone knew what was going on but what were you supposed to do when someone suddenly started flying?

Even John who had actually done the flying looked confused, Dipper felt like he should move, do something, say something but he was frozen in place. This was ridiculous all his life he’d been interested in mysteries, the unknown, the unexplainable and here something amazing had happened right in front of him and he couldn’t make himself move.

Dipper had come out here looking for answers but now he suddenly had a whole new set of questions.

John could fly? How? Why? Did John know? Why hadn’t he told them? Were there other things John could do? All these questions and thousands more were running through Dipper’s head when suddenly his sister tore through the silence that had been hanging over them all.

“Oh my gosh John that was amazing! Why didn’t you tell me you could fly!?” Mabel asked excitedly as John put her down only for Mabel to immediately give him a hug. It was like Mabel had broken some kind of spell and as soon as she spoke Dipper found himself able to move again.

“Mabel are you okay?” he asked running up to his twin and gave her a hug, his eyes looked at how high the tree that she fell from was and Dipper had to repress a shiver. Right now it didn’t matter how or why John was able to fly, all that mattered was that the fact that John could fly saved Mabel. That was what was important right now; Dipper would worry about the rest later.

Mabel laughed as she returned his hug, “don’t worry bro, bro I’m fine John totally saved me like a super hero!” Mabel joked causing John to look a bit embarrassed, the others were walking up to them and talking all at once before Dipper could say anything else. It made sense that he wasn’t the only one with questions about what happened.

“Oh my gosh dudes is John a super hero?” Soos asked in amazement while Candy started showing Mabel and John a video she got on her camera of Mabel and John flying it was kind of amazing that she had thought to grab her camera to make a record of it while every one else was pretty much frozen in surprise.

“Oh my gosh dudes what if John is an alien sent from space to save us all!” Soos exclaimed while Mabel laughed as Grenda started poking John, “Why didn’t you tell us you had cool powers not cool mister! Friends don’t keep secrets from friends!” Grenda scolded, and Dipper could practically see John struggling not to cover his ears and seem rude.

John looked a bit sheepish as Dipper spoke up grabbing the other boys attention instantly, “John did you know you could fly?” Dipper asked as John rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment before answering.

“Not really, I mean I really thought I was going to fall and I remember thinking I didn’t want to hit the ground and then I … didn’t” John explained as Dipper tried to process the information, it actually made sense considering that John was probably one of the most honest people he had ever met. He couldn’t really see John keeping super powers a secret from his friends, especially Mabel.

In the time since John had moved to Gravity Falls Mabel had practically become his best friend.

“I’m glad we didn’t hit the ground and flying is so cool! I want to fly!” Mabel joked as John smiled at her, maybe it was his imagination but it felt like John let out a breath of relief that none of them had realized he was holding except maybe Mabel she could usually tell if something was bothering some one.

“I know right? Like if I had to have a super power I’m glad it’s flying because flying is like the coolest thing ever!” John said as Mabel nodded her head in agreement and Dipper couldn’t help but smile, flying was a cool super power.

“Guys, do you understand what this means?” Dipper asked excitedly as his eyes widen in realization, the others looked at him in confusion as he continued. “John can fly! Maybe he can do other things! This might have something to do with what’s in the journal! What if that’s the reason we even found the journal!” Dipper rambled excitedly when Mabel suddenly interrupted him by blowing a raspberry.

“Oh my gosh calm down you dork, we need to first celebrate the fact that I don’t need a cast though having a cast would have been cool, you guys could have sighed it!” Mabel told him and he found himself rolling his eyes because only his sister could have a positive take on breaking bones while John laughed.

“Oh man we totally could have, though since I was falling with you we could have gotten matching casts,” John said to Mabel in agreement as she gasped in excitement at the prospect. Scratch the previous statement only his sister and John could think breaking bones could be a positive thing. “Still I’m glad we didn’t break anything though as fun as it is to have people sign your cast broken bones still suck and my mom would kill me if anything got in the way of my studies,” John continued.

“So what do we do now?” Candy suddenly spoke up, saying the question that he didn’t really want to consider, they had to do something but was there really anything that they could do?

“I’d like to search the area a bit more to see if we can find any clues but we should probably head back and think of what our next step should be,” Dipper replied thoughtfully, as the others nodded he wanted to stay and find as many clues as he could but something told him they wouldn’t find anything to do with John’s ability to fly right now though it was a frustrating thought.

But he was sure of one thing at least for some reason he was convinced that John being able to fly had something to do with the mysteries of the town.

\---

Soos dropped gave him a lift home after dropping the Pines twins and Candy and Grenda off at their respective houses, John guesses he’s grateful it sure beats just walking home even though his house wasn’t that long a walk from the mystery shack.

The only problem is he kinda wished Soos stopped trying to think of a super hero name for him. He’d rather come up with a name for himself to be honest or wait for the newspapers or something to give him one instead like they do for the heroes in comic books.

It was kind of weird suddenly being able to fly was it a one-time thing or was it just something he could do now? At the time he wasn’t really thinking of anything other than trying to help Mabel, he’d grabbed on to her and decided to try and lessen the impact for her only to find that they weren’t falling.

Flying wasn’t something normal people could do so… this meant that he wasn’t normal right? He kind of wanted to be normal he didn’t want to be weird or anything like that. He was the normal person in his group of friends at least he was supposed to be, he never really felt special… John decided to abandon this train of thought because it’s getting a bit complicated.

Flying was kind of fun and even though he was sure that it was the first time he’s ever done anything like that, it didn’t feel like it was the first time. Flying felt familiar, right even. It was almost like something he’d done hundreds of time before it felt as natural as breathing he almost hadn’t wanted to come down.

It was great that every one else was so calm about the whole thing, honestly he might freak out about it if he let himself think about it…

“Here we are dude,” Soos said as they pulled up to John’s house pulling John out of his thoughts, he hadn’t realized they were already here who that was fast.

“Thanks Soos, are you heading home now?” John asked as he collected his things and got out the car and Soos shrugged in response.

“It’s been a crazy day dude I think I’m going to make a phone call to process all this stuff before heading home but first I should probably head back to the shack,” Soos replied and John nodded because he understood Soos’s need to talk about all of this with someone who wasn’t also kind of freaking out about it thought to be honest Soos seemed more excited than anything else.

John shut the car door just as Soos started making his phone call, “Wendy, I've got something amazing to tell you. Clear the next fourteen hours!” 

John sighed as he headed towards his house, hopefully his mom wouldn’t be home yet. He always felt unable to really relax whenever his mom was around, he felt awful for the fact that he thought that because you’re supposed to love your parents but he never really felt much love in the house. Even though he has only ever really been raised by one person he had some sort of feeling about what a loving parent should be like and it didn’t really fit his mom.

But he shouldn’t feel like that! His mom was doing her best, and yeah she was busy and yeah she was strict but she was raising him alone and it was fine! He was fine!

Ugh! What was with him today? He kept on thinking about things that he’d rather not think about.

He knew Soos was telling Wendy and he guesses he was okay with that, to be honest they all had a big discussion on what to do and who should know and they all decided to keep it a secret. Wendy got to know though because she was cool and they could probably trust her. Though Dipper was big on trusting no one else.

Part of John wondered if he should tell his mom, she might have an idea of what’s going on but he really didn’t want her to know. She’d probably think there was something wrong with him…

Yeah keeping this all secret was probably the best option for them all, they were going to have a meeting tomorrow to talk more about everything that happened but he honestly didn’t know how to feel about it or any of it really. He actually really loved flying, he felt free and it felt like something he was supposed to do but he didn’t really like the implications or the fact that he had no clue why he could fly.

He slumped down on the couch when suddenly his phone buzzed with a message.

glitteryTurnaround started pestering ghostyTrickster  

GT: Hey John!  
GT: I was thinking about all the junk that happened today  
GT: It was super cool  
GT: You’re super cool  
GT: I mean you’re a big dork but saving me was pretty cool  
GT: Oh yeah thank you for saving me I’m not sure I got to say that B4  
GT: Though I don’t have much time to talk I just want to say that if your finding all the junk about the fact that you can fly confusing just remember we’re your friends and we love you  
GT: We’ll always be there for you!  
GT: And Dipper’s being a total dork getting all geared up to solve this big mystery  
GT: I’ve got to go but don’t worry John this is going to turn out to be great you’ll see!

glitteryTurnaround ceased pestering ghostyTrickster

John smiled to himself as he looked at the message, no matter what it was nice to know he had friends who had his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So funny thing even though this weeks chapter was about Dipper being excited about mystery and a look on John's insecurities the two bits of Candy were my favorite. Also Mabel is an adorable child who loves her friends.


	12. Chapter 12

John managed to get to the Mystery Shack pretty quickly but was still for some reason the last one there, even Wendy got there before him and she was nearly always late for her shifts.

They had all agreed to meet up to discuss everything that happened the day before, since that seemed like the obvious choice of action. It wasn’t like they could all just pretend that him flying yesterday wasn’t a think that had happened.

Well he guesses they could, it might be kind of nice to ignore it. It was cool and it did feel like something natural to him but he also knew that people weren’t meant to fly and maybe it would be nice to ignore weird shit happening to him. But he knew that Dipper wasn’t going to ignore a big mystery and the others would probably say that it wasn’t ‘emotionally healthy’ to ignore big things just because they made you uncomfortable blah blah blah.

Candy kept on suggesting that he might be emotionally stunted or something but Stan said he was fine! Besides not everyone can be in touch with their emotions as Mabel, though sometimes John felt like Mabel wouldn’t show other people that she’s sad and just tries to deal with it herself. 

Maybe that’s the reason why he was the last one to the meeting even though the meeting was about him, it was because it was about him.

“Hey sorry I’m late guys my mom wanted me to do some piano practice this morning,” John said coming up with an excuse, which was a kind of half way lie. While it was true that he did a bit of piano practice in the morning like he did every morning it wasn’t really enough to make him late but you didn’t show up late without an excuse that would be rude.

Mabel waved to him as he went to sit next to her, “geez John we were all waiting for you” Mabel jokingly complained as John rolled his eyes, it wasn’t like he was actually late he was even there before the agreed time everyone else had just got there before him and he even told her that.

“Being the last one to show up automatically makes you late because you’re keeping everyone waiting, sorry John I don’t make the rules” Mabel informed him of the rule that she definitely just made up with a shrug. “Besides me and Dipper were the first ones here which means we’ve been waiting the longest.” Mabel added.

John gave her a playful shove before responding “It doesn’t count as being the first ones to a meeting when the meeting is at your house, the rest of us have to get ready and come over all you have to do is come down the stairs,” he joked as Mabel gave him a gasp of protest.

“Excuse you! Unlike Dipper I make sure I look fantastic every day no matter what I’m doing,” Mabel stated brushing off the ‘hey!’ she got from her twin, “don’t be like that bro, bro! You know I love you!” Mabel said causing John to laugh a bit as Dipper rolled his eyes.

 

“Well, if you two are done,” Dipper started, turning to face the group but Mabel shook her head as she interrupted brother.

“I'm never done, but go on.” 

“If you two are done,” Dipper repeated, a joking irritation in his voice, “we need to discuss what happened yesterday,” Dipper began and John found himself sighing and slumping down into his chair, looks like he couldn’t avoid the reason they even called this meeting in the first place forever.

“I’ve been consulting journal and I’ve been coming up with some theories, there have been talks about these beings called the ‘Creators’ who created our universe,” Dipper explained looking excited about getting to talk about his theory. John found himself perking up to pay more attention calling the people who created the universe ‘The Creators’ seemed a bit unoriginal even though it was accurate but something about it rang a faint bell.

“There are legends that say that they could fly and that we’re all kind of descended from them. If that’s true then it could be possible that there might be some sort of connection between ‘The Creators’ and John being able to fly,” Dipper said flipping though different pages of the book as if he were looking for the parts that were linked to his theory.

“So what you think that John being able to ‘fly’ was some how linked to the Gods, is he like the chosen one or something?” Wendy jokingly asked; John got the feeling that the older girl wasn’t exactly sure how seriously she should take the meeting. After all Wendy was the only one of them there who hadn’t been there when John flew in the first place. She might not completely believe them after all the idea of someone being able to fly was kind of impossible but she was still giving them what was probably the benefit of the doubt and showing up to the meeting which was nice of her.

John turned his attention back to Dipper as the other boy hummed thoughtfully while thinking over Wendy’s question, “that could be a possible theory so someone should write that down,” Dipper stated as Candy suddenly started writing the theory down on a piece of paper John hadn’t seen her take out. “But I kind of think it might be something else,” Dipper continued before being interrupted by Mabel’s laughter.

“Yeah, after all Dipper would probably want to be the chosen one,” Mabel joked as a slight blush came on Dipper’s face and he began to protest only causing Mabel to laugh more eventually after she had stopped Dipper cleared his throat to bring attention back to the meeting.

“Any way, I’ve been thinking that perhaps the danger of the situation caused John to tap in to capabilities that came from being descendants of the Creators. Kind of like those mothers that can lift cars to save their babies, come we all know the ones.” Dipper said and they all nodded because yeah they’ve all heard that news story. Something about it made John feel like that wasn’t quite it but he had wanted to help Mabel at the time so at least maybe this happened because he wanted to help his friend was right.

“I might be able to lift up a car if I tried!” Grenda declared causing John, Mabel and Candy to nod because if she tried Grenda could probably lift up a car. Grenda was super cool.

“But Dipper, if your theory is right does that mean that the situation was only a one time thing? Or maybe John has to be in danger to use his powers?” Candy spoke up putting forwards some good points. He hadn’t tried to fly since that first time and honestly he’d probably be okay if he couldn’t.

Okay that was kind of a lie. He actually really liked the feeling of flying and it did feel normal when he was doing it but he probably shouldn’t be okay with it.

“Hang on a minute I can’t let you kids put yourselves in danger just to give yourself super powers!” Wendy said suddenly sounding serious, usually Wendy sounded laid back but the idea of them being reckless seemed to bring out a more responsible side to her.

John was perfectly fine with not putting himself in danger to see if it would make him fly again. It was probably better if he didn’t fly maybe; flying felt great there was a sort of freedom to it. He started thinking of how he felt that short time when he was up in the air, it was almost like he was reclaiming something that someone had tried to take from him, it was great. John was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard gasps from the others in the room.

“No way…” Wendy muttered as Soos and Candy had suddenly taken out their phones and were taking pictures. John glanced down and noticed that he was floating away from the ground. He definitely didn’t slightly panic and flail about for a few seconds before realizing he was fine and regaining his composure, he was super calm and collected throughout the whole thing and anyone who says other wise is a liar.

“So that answers the question on whether this was a one time thing or not,” Candy muttered as Mabel started helping John down by pulling him down almost as if he were a helium balloon Mabel was trying to keep from flying away.

“How’d you do that?” Mabel asked and John just shrugged despite the fact that Dipper was staring at him intently because it’s not like John had planned that or anything.

“I was just kind of trying to remember how I felt while flying and it sort of just happened.” John told them truthfully and he saw Dipper and Mabel exchange looks almost as if they were having the same thought. They said they didn’t have the legendary twin mind connection but they did happen to be on the same page sometimes.

“Soos it’s time to show John the surprise!” Mabel declared excitedly and Soos gave a salute before running to the back yard looking really pretty excited himself while John looked at the twins curiously. 

“We thought that you might have problems with all your powers and junk and want to practice,” Mabel began as she started leading every one out to follow Soos.

“So we sort of came up with this little obstacle course, to help you develop and test the flying thing.” Dipper finished excitedly as they came outside as Soos was putting some final touches on something that John hoped wouldn’t kill him.

How they had put this together in less than a day he’ll never know but his friends had put a lot of effort into it so he might as well give it a shot.

 

\---

 

Mabel thought John was beginning to do really well with the obstacle course thing; he was a natural when it came to flying! Mabel had once tried to make a guide to flying and had come to the conclusion that flying and falling were basically the same thing but John barely fell at all. In fact he seemed to prefer to be up in the air most days.

It’s been a few days since they discovered that John could fly and he’s been practicing after school with them nearly every day. At first he seemed a bit unsure, almost rusty when they started out but was really quickly beginning to get the hang of flying he was basically a natural.

“Hey John if you were ever to I don’t know, say wear an outfit with a cape in it how big would it be?” Mabel called as John flew over to her and looked thoughtful, she didn’t want to give too much away but she had been working on a few designs for a super cool surprise for John that she knew he was going to love!

“I don’t think I’d ever wear a cape but maybe… a hood?” John said thoughtfully as if he was thinking of something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. John would occasionally have moments like that so it was important to drag him back to earth now and then.

“What kind of hood?” Mabel asked curiously pulling John out of his thoughts, she was kind of curious about why John wouldn’t like the idea of having a cape. Capes were awesome and like the universal must have for super heroes but she had to make sure that this was what John wanted so if he liked the idea of replacing capes with hoods, well then she guesses they were replacing capes with hoods!

“Maybe… a long one? Kind of like a wind sock?” John offered making a movement with his hands to mimic the shape of a windsock and Mabel couldn’t help but laugh at the idea.

“A windsock? What?” Mabel said in-between her laughter because what the heck? That was such a nerdy idea it was perfect for John pff windsock.

“Hey it’s cool!” John protested as Mabel rolled her eyes and started scribbling down the hood design, windsock it was then. She covered her notebook when she noticed John curiously trying to see what she was drawing.

“Hey no peaking Mr! This is a top secret project!” She told him as she watched John roll his eyes and try and look again though this time it was more to just tease her well she was having none of that and put the notebook quickly in her sylladex sticking her tongue out as she did so.

“What? Come on?” John complained as she laughed victoriously at his protest. It’s not like he wouldn’t see what she was doing later but right now she wanted his surprise to actually be a surprise, when she stopped laughing she noticed John looking thoughtful.

“Hey Mabel you know how you’ve been using a sylladex lately? Have you assigned yourself a strife specibus yet?” John asked her as she shook her head, well yeah she and Dipper both had fist kind after Uncle Stan taught them how to box but that didn’t really count, she told John as much and he nodded in response. “Okay, I just thought that you could clear up space in your sylladex like that,” John suggested.

Mabel hummed thoughtfully as she considered John’s suggestion, to be fair it made a lot of sense before she just kept her grappling hook under her sweater and now she kept it in her sylladex, which was both more comfortable and convenient. Uncle Stan had given both her and Dipper an extra card in their strife deck in case they ever came up with their own weapons.

With a nod Mabel made up her mind and assigned herself grappling hook kind.

“Pretty cool right?” Mabel said as John grinned at her approvingly. “Do you have anything in your strife deck?” Mabel asked him as John began to look a bit embarrassed before nodding.

“Ah yeah, hammer kind… It just felt really weird not to have *anything* you know,” he told her as she nodded. Yeah she guesses she could understand that. They probably would never actually need weapons to fight but it could never hurt to have them you know? Though she would never understand why John chose hammers of all things but she guesses everyone had things they preferred even though grappling hooks were clearly superior to everything.

Later after John had left for home, she told Dipper about it and Dipper assigned himself book kind, saying that the journal might actually be safer tucked away like that but honestly that was absolutely hilarious.

She will never be able to get the image of Dipper bopping people on the head with a book out her head now, oh my gods.

She was really excited that night as she began to work on her surprise for John, it shouldn’t take that long for her to make considering she could make an outfit for herself within a day. Heck she made a new sweater every day!

Maybe she should stop having late night projects but she was really excited about this. Things had gotten a little crazy and confusing when they all found out that John could fly but that had been adjusted to pretty well and John was getting more comfortable about the idea that he could fly every day!

 

Mabel had the feeling that she and her friends could take on whatever the universe had to throw at them.

 

\---

In a large conference room the saviors of this world met to discuss the project regarding the Heir of Breath, all those in the room looked at a screen that held a picture of surveillance footage taken near the Pines family residence.

The Pines family have for many years had been of interest to them.

The screen showed a picture of a young man flying round a homemade obstacle course. A man in a yellow suit and an eye patch over one eye smiled widely. “Well it’s about time something happened don’t you all think?” he asked an element of amusement in his voice as there was a murmur around the room.

“While this is pleasing is it safe to simply leave him be for now?” one person asked.

“We weren’t sure if the Heir’s powers had remained intact during the process after all he seemed so normal…” said another

“But he’s not normal he’s a weapon!” another member spoke up.

“Our researcher has been monitoring him and is making sure he stays on top of his achievements in academics, right now it is important that he learns how to reach goals put before him and obedience to authority figures,” one argued. 

“Can’t have a weapon with free will am I right? So we’re crushing his spirit in a no fun household. But rules are so boring I say we get some tests ready to see what the kid is capable of don’t you think?” The man with the eye patch suggested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mabel jinked it you guys. The last bit isn't really from any ones point of view really but it does set the stage for the next major plot point. So far things have been kind of slow build but things might start speeding up but I'm not sure we'll see what happens it that does happen some things might seem rushed but I hope that won't be a problem.


	13. Chapter 13

If she had to say it Mabel thought she was doing a pretty good job with John’s surprise, it was nearly ready but she hadn’t put the finishing touches on it yet. It clearly needed glitter and she was thinking about maybe adding some rhinestones or sequins.

Nothing too flashy she had to keep reminding herself that she had to make sure that John was happy with his gift and Dipper didn’t seem to happy when she gave him a sequin shirt for their last birthday, which she thought was ridiculous because she thought he would look great in it!

John was the type of person that would love any gift from a friend but she guesses it was also important not to let John get overwhelmed with her artistic vision.

Sometimes she felt as if she was born before her time.

John’s surprise had taken a little bit longer than she had originally planned because she got over excited and started making something for herself as well but she had been working on it the past few days and other than some decorations it was basically done!

Good Job Mabel! Thanks Mabel! She thought to herself because really this might turn out to be some of her best work, it kind of looked professionally made so she was pretty sure she deserved a pat on the back for it. Mabel found herself grinning to herself before her grin was interrupted by a slight yawn.

Oh well she had been pulling a few late nights to work on this so she wasn’t surprised she was sleepy, and it was pretty late. Gosh she was getting worse than Dipper like this!

Though to be fair her twin wasn’t asleep either, he was still pouring over that journal he and John had found in the woods. Dipper was very close to becoming obsessed with the thing to be honest.

With Mabel pulling late nights there had been nothing to stop her brother from not sleeping, since they shared a room she could usually convince Dipper to get some shut eye at a reasonable time because Dipper did like keeping her up.

He did keep her up a lot when he was reading because he thought that reading was quiet but it wasn’t when he did it!

Mabel walked over to her twin and started poking him, he let out some protest and batted her hand away before she started speaking, “Hey bro, bro it’s late I’m going to bed.” She informed him as he briefly looked up from the journal to acknowledge what she was saying, he didn’t put it down though which might mean her chance at sleep was in jeopardy.

“Okay, I’m going to stay up and try and break through a bit more of the journals codes.” Dipper told her and she had to practically fight back the groan only she didn’t put up much of a fight and ended up letting out a groan any way.

“No your not Dipper! I’ve had too many late nights lately and I can’t have you keep me up with your reading!” She protested and this time Dipper put the journal down and looked at her in disbelief as if he couldn’t believe what she had just said.

“What? How does reading keep you up?” he complained as she simply glared at him. Oh it kept her up Dipper it kept her up. Her twin raised his hands in defeat after she had glared at him for a few moments before he spoke again. “Okay, okay fine I’m going to bed happy?” he asked putting the journal away.

“Absolutely!” she replied quickly as she rushed over to her bed and made herself comfortable under her blanket, “good night Dipper.” She called to her brother as he began to switch off the lamplight currently illuminating the room.

“Good night Mabel,”

It wasn’t long before Mabel found herself drifting to sleep, some people said that her dreams were weird but she always found them perfectly normal to her. She loved dreams with anime boys and dolphins and waffles with big arms but the dream she had that night was definitely strange.

She had never seen anything like it. It started out with what looked like underwater, maybe the bottom of the Ocean? At fist Mabel thought she was dreaming about being a mermaid again only she still had both her legs and also when you dream you don’t usually realize you were dreaming.

Mabel had heard that some people could do that but Mabel was pretty sure that she wasn’t one of those people; it didn’t even feel like she was asleep. It felt as though she was awake and that she was simply somewhere different now.

It was underwater but there were cracks along the sky and ground, it was almost like she was in a bubble or a snow globe and some one had tried to break it causing all the scars and cracks.

Only this was a lot worse because there was a hole big enough to see what was happening outside and it was a horrifying to watch, debris and people were flying towards what looked like a black hole.

She could hear the deafening screams of all those people flying towards that black hole and her heart ached in her chest almost as if she could feel their pain and their fear.

Mabel found herself desperately looking around for something anything to stop this or help those people when she noticed a super beautiful troll, with long hair and wearing what looked like swimmer goggles standing in front of a house so large it should be described as a castle. Heck Mabel was pretty sure it was a castle.

Mabel wondered what the troll was doing there, the castle looked fancy and the troll’s gills were proof that she wasn’t high up on the hemo spectrum. Not that the hemo spectrum should actually mean anything but it was still a thought that crossed her mind.

She paused when she noticed the trolls sign or to but it more specifically the color of the sign. She had a sign that looked almost like one of the symbols of the Zodiac but more importantly her sign indicated that her blood colour was that of a fuchsia blood.

Those with fuchsia had been practically wiped out so this was the first one she had ever seen before. Mabel decided she should greet the troll and started making her way over to her when she noticed the troll had been muttering something and could only make it out once Mabel had gotten close enough.

“The dream bubbles are collapsing?” the troll muttered before she noticed that Mabel was there, she stared at Mabel in shock, it looked like she was about to say something to her when Mabel suddenly woke up.

Mabel took a few moments not getting out of bed to comprehend what had just happen. That… was probably one of the weirdest dreams she had ever had. It was absolutely making the top five in her weird dreams.

Why did she have a dream like that?

\---

“Mabel are you okay,” Dipper asked his twin as she yawned for the third time that morning as they started walking to school with John. He noticed John looking at Mabel worriedly as Mabel just laughed and tried to shrug off their concern.

“Guys don’t worry I just didn’t get enough sleep last night,” She reassured them though they didn’t loose their looks of concern, “guys seriously I’m fine” Mabel repeated but he still was a bit worried. What Mabel said didn’t really add up, he was sure that she had gone to sleep before him and he told her as much.

Mabel groaned before she answered him, “yeah but I feel like I didn’t get any sleep at all and I had the weirdest dream!” his twin complained sparking his interest because from her tone it sounded like the bad kind of weird and Mabel nearly never categorized anything as the bad kind of weird.

It probably sparked John’s interest as well because the next thing the other boy said was “oh man what was the dream about?” Usually it wasn’t a good idea to ask about what Mabel dreams about or you could fall down a rabbit hole about a conversation about a dolphin with muscles but something inside of Dipper told him this could be interesting.

Mabel began to describe her dream as the entered the school grounds while John listened intently only speaking when Mabel had finished, “dream bubbles?” John asked and Dipper had to take a moment to look at the other boy in disbelief.

“Seriously that’s the part you want to comment on?” Dipper asked taking a book out of his locker because really it wasn’t the most interesting part. They all learned about things called dream bubbles when learning about ancient myths. Apparently they were the after life for the gods or something. 

A teacher had probably been talking about it and that’s why Mabel dreamed about it no big deal. John shrugged at him as the bell rang and the three of them hurried to their respective classes.

“Remember guys I’m heading to the craft store after school so you two can come as well if you want!” Mabel called as she walked away as John called over confirmation that he would be there, Dipper himself just nodded and waved goodbye to her before heading over to his lesson, it was pretty much a given that he’d go with her some one had to keep Mabel out of trouble.

“Hello Mason,” Lily greeted him, she was well liked in the class and spoke to nearly every one but it felt like she had been talking to him a bit more than usual lately. She continued speaking before he even had a chance to respond to her and she looked almost excited about something, “I have a feeling that today is going to be an interesting day don’t you agree?” she asked and Dipper found himself shrugging because honestly today just felt like any other.

But who knows what could happen, with that thought in mind he turned his attention towards the teacher who had just come into the classroom.

The rest of the day went pretty quickly after that, it wasn’t long before he was walking through town with Mabel and John to get the things that Mabel needed for her ‘secret project’ so they were going to buy what he was pretty sure would probably be a couple tons of glitter. Even though they shared a room Mabel had managed to keep what she was making a secret from him which was kind of impressive all he knew was that it was a gift for John, as far as Dipper knew John didn’t know Mabel was making something for him and Dipper had received orders/ threats from his sister to not spoil the surprise even though Dipper honestly didn’t even know what the surprise was so he wasn’t sure how he could spoil it for the other boy.

They had gotten close to the craft store when they noticed there was a huge crowd in front of the street the craft store was on and a crowd forming in front of a line of police tape that was in front of the street.

“What’s going on?” Dipper muttered out loud as the three of them looked at what was going on in front of them in confusion, had something happened? Had there been an accident? These thoughts ran through Dipper’s head until he was surprised by a familiar voice suddenly talking behind him.

“I know dude it’s pretty crazy right?” Soos said suddenly appearing behind him. Despite the fact that he liked to think himself a brave mystery hunter, Dipper make have shrieked in surprise at Soos’s sudden appearance. Soos chucked to himself in a friendly way before he began to apologize, “sorry Dipper didn’t mean to like startle you or anything.”

Dipper shook his head to reassure Soos that nothing was wrong before he started to question the handy man on whether or not he knew what was going on. “It’s fine Soos, do you know what’s happening?” Dipper asked as Soos shrugged.

“I don’t know what to tell you dudes there’s like this little guy who might be a monster that’s serious bad news and causing all sorts of trouble,” Soos explained, as the three kids looked at him in disbelief, Dipper wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to hear but it probably wasn’t that.

At that moment sheriff Blubs and deputy Durland ran across the street with some small kind of creature running after them, “Wow” Mabel muttered as John eyed the creature with a frown almost as if the other boy recognized it but wasn’t sure where to place it. Dipper gasped when he realized he recognized the creature too.

Odd though, he didn’t think John had actually seen that page of the journal.

“Guys wait I know what this is!” Dipper said almost excitedly while he started getting the journal out while John, Mabel and Soos looked over his shoulder so that they could see the journal page. “It’s an imp!” Dipper announced tapping the page with information about imps, “there are apparently many different types but that looks like it might be a shale imp,” Dipper explained. He was about to read out some of the journal entries information about imps when his sister suddenly stopped him.

“So it’s like a monster?” she asked nearly nocking Dipper out of his excitement as he nodded and tried to answer as accurately as he could according to the journal’s entries.

“Basically yeah, but there’s a bit more to it than that-“ he began when his twin interrupted him again. Seriously Mabel! He couldn’t believe that he had been interrupted when he was answering her question.

“Soos can you give up back to the shack?” Mabel asked suddenly and Soos replied with a ‘sure dude’ as they all looked at her in confusion, why did she want to go back to the shack when all this was happening? He nearly asked her before he noticed a determined look in his twin’s eyes.

“I wanted to at the very least add some glitter to it but it’s pretty much finished, John I think it’s time that I gave you your surprise!” his twin announced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuff is happening! Dream bubbles! A Feferi cameo! Imps and there will be a gift from Mabel next chapter! Though I'm sure you've all already guessed what she's doing. Also for anyone who wants to know there will be more Feferi in the future but it might be gradual.
> 
> Sorry for any typos this chapter, I've tried to check everything but it's 2AM here and I can barley keep myself awake.


	14. Chapter 14

“Mabel, what do you mean surprise?” Dipper asked his twin as he watched Mabel hurry John and Soos towards Soos’s truck. It was weird seeing his sister with such a determined look on her face when it didn’t look like the situation involved anything sparkly or a cat.

“No time to explain! We’ve got to move it! Get in!” Mabel ordered dismissing his question, but he knew better than to argue with Mabel during the rare moments she looked seriously so he quickly obeyed and got in the truck.

He was the last one to do so and Soos was already starting the engine when he shut the door, Dipper noticed that John was looking curiously at Mabel and Dipper supposed that the other boy must be curious about what Mabel was planning as well.

“Mabel why are we heading back to the shack?” John asked before Mabel suddenly put her hand over his mouth. John’s face looked a slight mix of surprised, confused and annoyed. If someone did that to Mabel herself she’d probably just lick their hands.

“No time to explain! Soos! Drive! Drive! Drive! No time to obey road safety laws!” Mabel demanded as the handy man responded with an ‘okay’ before straightening his hat and started driving. The boys in the car didn’t even have time to say anything else except a ‘wait what?’ before being thrown into chaos.

Considering that their Uncle, Stan ‘when no cops are around anything is legal’ Pines raised them; Dipper and Mabel hadn’t exactly grown up with much respect for ‘laws’ per say and honestly he would admit that they might also be a bad influence on other kids.

He’d always kind of just assumed that Candy and Grenda had always been weird but John had learnt how to pick locks and maybe take some stuff from people with out them noticing ever since he started hanging out with them. But come on John liked card tricks, which involved slight of hand anyway so this was bound to happen eventually anyway right?

Even still after that drive Dipper decided that there was always time for road safety laws. At times like this he was reminded that Stan was the one that had originally taught Soos to drive. He’s pretty sure that they might have hit a couple of things on the way. 

It wasn’t long until they reached the Mystery Shack the truck screeching to a halt and Mabel wasted no time in unbuckling her seat belt and getting out John quickly following her with a ‘hey Mabel wait’ before Dipper unbuckled his own seat belt and ran after the two. He noticed that there were some twigs stuck to the front of the truck.

They might have hit a bush or something but who’s to say for sure? Dipper was pretty certain that they had hit a lot of things.

“Soos turn the TV on to the news!” Mabel ordered already climbing up the stairs; Soos gave her a salute before running into the living room it was almost funny watching his sister give orders like this for something that didn’t involve an art project but he wasn’t really surprised at Soos for following along. The handy man had always been there for the twins when they needed him.

Mabel had made a be-line to their room with Dipper and John following her, the two boys exchanging looks as Mabel started rummaging through where she was keeping her ‘secret’ project. John’s surprise.

When it looked like she found what she was looking for Mabel finally stopped and took a breath of relief almost as if she had been worried that what she had made wouldn’t be there when she ‘needed it’. John seemed to notice that Mabel had stopped moving so hurriedly and spoke up.

“Um Mabel what’s going on?” John asked as Dipper curiously watched his sister; it seemed like she was excited. Though to be honest Mabel was always excited, this was a different kind of excited like she almost expected something like this to happen her eyes fall of anticipation.

Dipper watched as his twin took a breath before explaining herself, “John… I’ve been thinking ever since you first flew don’t you think there was a reason for that?” Mabel asked and John started to look nervous and shuffle his feet despite Mabel’s intense but encouraging gaze the other boy still looked a little reluctant to answer.

“…I guess that there’s probably a reason and Dipper has been looking into it…” John began to mutter and Dipper had to fight the frown that threatened to make its way onto his face. The night after they had all learnt that John could fly Mabel had mentioned before bed that she was worried that this could trouble John since they didn’t know why it was happening but Dipper had been certain that they’d find answers soon enough.

Now he felt a little guilty that he hadn’t found answers yet, true it had only been a couple of weeks but Dipper being the mystery solver that he was, had been getting a bit frustrated that they hadn’t found any new clues and now he could feel guilty because it looked like his sister had been right about this. Of course this bothered John but Dipper hadn’t seen it since John was so good at seeming okay. 

It was kind of amazing that Mabel had been able to see through that but Mabel was always concerned about how people felt.

“… I just wanted to make sure you were okay at the time…” John continued dragging Dipper out of his thoughts, it looked like John was about to try and lighten the mood and dismiss that slight display of negative emotions before Mabel interrupted him excitedly.

“Exactly John! These powers are supposed to help people! You’re a hero I can feel it!” Mabel told John her voice a mix of excitement and encouragement while John gave Dipper a confused look, he gave John a shrug because he didn’t know where his sister was going with this as Mabel handed John a bungle of clothes.

“This must be why you have super powers John! And a super hero needs a super hero outfit!” Mabel said determination shining in her eyes again, oh boy.

\---

John felt himself just staring at the outfit that Mabel had made him, was this a super hero outfit? Mabel seemed to think that he was some kind of superhero and if he was honest the idea was kind of exciting but part of himself also couldn’t really see it.

Him a superhero? No way he wasn’t a super hero, at least he didn’t feel like one. Yeah he could fly but that didn’t really mean anything, he was just a plain and dorky kid the fact that he could fly was probably the most remarkable thing about him. Even if he was put in a situation where important stuff was going on *he* probably wouldn’t do anything important, he’d just run around following orders while everyone else made a difference, while he followed someone else’s plan because he wouldn’t be able to do anything worthwhile himself unless someone better, who actually had an idea of what to do and what was going on to dictate his actions and give him some kind of mission or quest.

He didn’t know where some of those thoughts came from but they were how he felt.

But here was Mabel, his best friend looking at him expectantly as if him being a hero or leader was some kind of obvious thing but honestly he couldn’t really see it, he was just the normal guy out of any group of friends right?

Before he could say anything Soos suddenly burst into room, slightly out of breath from running to the twin’s attic bedroom “dudes you gotta come see this!” Soos said urgently and all three kids in the room exchanged looks before following Soos downstairs where he had been watching the news.

The TV was still playing when they entered the Gravity Falls news team, the only real reporter the town had standing outside the street that Mabel’s craft store was on.

“I’m Shandra Jimenez and chaos has been gripped the peaceful town of Gravity Falls, a few hours ago a strange creature appeared and began to cause havoc. So far all attempts by police to deal with the creature have been left unsuccessful-“ the report was cut off but Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland screaming as the imp started crawling on the deputy’s face, “is there no end in sight to this mayhem?” the reporter asked though John wasn’t really paying attention.

He kept on feeling bothered every time he saw that creature… that imp.

He felt as if he had seen it before though he couldn’t place where, though he did feel like it shouldn’t be here and it was kind of his responsibility to deal with it. Though John wasn’t really sure why.

Mabel dragged him out his thoughts as she continued trying to convince him of some sort of plan that seems to have been developing in her mind. John wasn’t really sure if this was good since he’d known Mabel for a few a while and had learnt by now that when Mabel had a plan there was a high risk of property damage, though he also knew that when Mabel started rolling with an idea there was practically no stopping her.

“John I know you can help people and I know this is probably scary and a little bit scary but I’m sure that things happen for a reason and you’re like one of the best people I know so if any one was going to get cool super powers to help people with it would obviously be you!” Mabel encouraged and John wasn’t sure if he wanted to smile or frown. It was nice that Mabel thought so much of him but then again that was friendship wasn’t it?

John did want to help people, and it seemed kind of obvious that he should help people if he could but he was just a normal kid who just so happened could also fly it felt weird seeing himself as a super hero.

“I’m not sure Mabel… Do you really think I can do it?” He asked and oh my gods he was actually going to do this wasn’t he? He felt kind of nervous but also kind of excited there was part of him that almost kind of told him that he was supposed to fight the imp, it was kind of crazy but it also made some weird kind of sense.

Mabel blew a raspberry before dismissing any second thoughts John was having, “Oh course you can John! And besides, I’ll be right there with you!” Mabel declared and yeah he was not following while Dipper began to look concerned voicing an almost ‘what!?’ at Mabel while Mabel just rolled her eyes.

“I’m not letting one of my best friends in the whole world face a monster alone and I’ve already made myself a super hero outfit!” Mabel told them and John found himself exchanging looks with the other boy concern clear on Dipper’s face.

“But Mabel John has powers!” Dipper said worriedly though Mabel didn’t look concerned and merely took out her grappling hook suddenly holding her choice of weapon confidently.

“Yeah but flying isn’t exactly fighting Dipper and besides he’ll need back up and there are lots of super heroes with out powers thank you very much!” Mabel stated and John felt himself shrugging because she did have a point and he would feel better having his friend beside him no matter what the situation and any girl was probably more deadly than he could be any way.

Heck he’d seen Mabel fight, she could cause more damage than a natural disaster! Definitely someone John was glad was on his side though something told him that the imp wouldn’t really be that hard to beat.

“Okay,” John said because at this point that was all that he felt needed to be said, a look of excitement spread over Mabel’s face while a look of disbelief spread over Dipper’s.

“John you can’t be serious!” Dipper nearly yelled at him while Mabel screamed excitedly in the background though before John had time to respond Mabel was already reassuring her twin.

“Dipper we have to! I don’t want people getting hurt,” Mabel explained while the worried look didn’t leave Dipper’s face and it was easy to tell what the other boy was thinking before he even had to say anything the silent ‘but you could get hurt’ was clear on his face.

“We’ll be careful!” John suddenly spoke up before he really knew what he was doing, Dipper looked at him in surprise before sighing after a moment and the look being replaced with slight gratitude murmuring an ‘alright’ in defeat.

“Yes! Thank you! And don’t you worry Dipping sauce, we need you on the walkie-talkie to be our strategy guy and watch out for us!” Mabel told her twin happily as slight smile creeping onto Dipper’s face at being sort of the commander of their kind of mission.

“Well I do like strategy” Dipper admitted and John found himself cheering along with Mabel, it was hard not to get caught up in Mabel’s excitement sometimes and Mabel was definitely excited as she turned towards the group.

“All right guys lets save the town!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit lets be superheroes! Okay next chapter I'm sure they're going to fight the imp, probably.


	15. Chapter 15

John thought that putting on a super hero outfit would make him feel silly and would probably feel really embarrassing in and of itself but as he looked at himself in the outfit that Mabel had made him, it almost felt natural.

The outfit that Mabel had made him felt simple enough; it was blue everything except for his yellow trainers were blue. He liked blue it was his favorite colour though he was glad he wore his yellow shoes today.

Something told him this outfit wouldn’t feel right without yellow shoes.

Then again he always liked his yellow trainers best, they gave him the same feeling of familiarity that the get up he was wearing did even though he couldn’t really understand why it should feel familiar after all he had never worn anything like this the trousers were a good length and were comfortable enough for him to run or jump or fly or whatever he would need to do, his shirt had this little symbol that he sometimes felt himself doodling in class when he wasn’t thinking and he had a long hood that reminded him of a wind sock.

It was kind of perfect? 

Of course whatever thing it felt familiar to it wasn’t an exact replica but whatever this outfit reminded him of it was close enough. Though what did feel new were the goggles.

Mabel had given him these yellow tinted rectangular goggles that fitted on without affecting his glasses to ‘protect his secret identity and probably keep bugs and wind away from his eyes’. Both were valid points.

As he fitted the goggles on John was torn between feeling excited and embarrassed, embarrassed because he was dressing up as a super hero but excited because he was starting to feel a little like a super hero.

“You ready to rock?” Mabel asked from the doorway suddenly appearing. John nearly jumped up in surprise because usually you could hear Mabel’s excited chaos getting closer before you saw but he hadn’t heard Mabel coming at all, had he really been that deep in thought?

“Mabel! How long have you been there?” he asked in surprise as Mabel laughed, he took a second to take in Mabel’s ‘super hero outfit’. You’d think that since he was the one with actual superpowers his outfit would be the one to stand out more but Mabel’s was absolutely flashier than his.

Mabel’s outfit was sparkly, John couldn’t help wonder if the lack of glitter on his own outfit had been because of Mabel using up most of her glitter on her skirt alone; though the idea of Mabel using up even part of her extensive glitter supply would be hard to wrap his head around.

But John guesses he should be grateful that his outfit wasn’t covered in glitter and sparkles. Although John was grateful anyway just from Mabel taking the time to make this outfit for him; he’d kind of come to the conclusion that the reason that the outfit felt familiar or right to him might just be because he was glad that his friend had made something special for him.

Mabel’s outfit consisted of green boots and sparkly pink leggings, with a pink skirt and top, which had, it’s own hood. It wasn’t a windsock like his but instead was what looked like a normal hood. She had a tool belt made into a utility belt in the center of it where the clip was, was a shooting star symbol. John wasn’t really surprised to see the shooting star Mabel’s favorite swearer is the one with the shooting star on it.

And to top it all off Mabel had a traditional superhero mask, it kind of made sense Mabel would get something like that when she decided to do the mission and be a superhero with him since a mask was the symbol of a superhero after all though that had been subject for debate and the reason he probably had goggles instead of a mask himself was because unlike the heroes in the comics he actually needed his glasses to see.

“I’ve only just got here but what did you think of my super special super hero stealth? I though I’d try it out” Mabel responded to him in an attempt to act casual though John could still hear excitement dripping in her voice. 

He gave Mabel a curious look before speaking again.

“Super special super hero stealth?” John asked trying to keep himself from laughing, while Mabel nodded at him enthusiastically. It was kind of nice that she was still being enthusiastic, yeah fighting a monster seemed kind of serious but he was glad that they weren’t taking themselves too seriously.

Even if a situation was serious he’d still want every one to remember that they were still kids though he’d probably feel a little awkward if he was the only one who felt like that.

“Yep! I’m doing everything I can to prepare for this mission; I’m like super prepared John! I’ve got attack glitter, marbles to trip the enemy up, some money for damages, and some snacks in case we get hungry you know everything super heroes need!” Mabel informed him, he found himself smiling fondly as Mabel listed off all the things she had packed into her too belt. To be honest he was a bit nervous about Mabel coming along, he didn’t want his best friend to get hurt but he was still glad that she was going to be by his side through this besides Mabel could handle herself part of him felt slightly sorry for the monster they were going after.

He was pulled out of his thoughts as Mabel grabbed his hand and started pulling him out the room, “come on Dipper’s waiting for us!” Mabel explained as they made their way to the living room where Dipper had a bunch of papers with plans on them and maps of the area the imp was in. The other boy heard the two of them come in and looked up from his plans.

John found himself frowning slightly as it looked like Dipper was trying to keep himself from smiling.

“You two look ridiculous,” Dipper stated jokingly trying to hold back a laugh while John rolled his eyes and Mabel waved her hand at her brother dismissively brushing of Dipper’s comment.

“We look awesome!” Mabel said confidently and at that John found himself laughing with Dipper because wow it was kind of hitting them that they were actually doing this. Dipper stopped laughing suddenly when he looked more closely at John though and his sudden change caused John and Mabel to regard Dipper with some confusion and concern.

“Hey Mabel, why did you chose that symbol for John?” Dipper asked curiously picking up the journal from the table and flicking through it until he landed on the page that he wanted.

“John always doodled it why?” Mabel responded as Dipper showed them the page in the journal that was covered in symbols, as soon as he saw the page John felt his blood run cold.

It was weird but he felt like he recognized each and every symbol on the page. It was about ‘aspects’ and the symbol that he felt a weird attachment to was there. It was called breath.

“Okay we’ve got a monster to fight! I’ll go get Soos!” he announced suddenly before Dipper continued talking, okay this was weird he was definitely going to ignore it. Maybe he’d seen the breath symbol from Dipper flicking through the journal earlier.

But that wasn’t right because he’d been drawing that symbol before they even found the journal…

Clearly the best thing he could do was not thinking about it at all and pretending it didn’t happen!

\---

Mabel really hoped that John wouldn’t decide to not think about the symbol situation at all and pretend it didn’t happen but she had a feeling that he might do something like that.

She’d mentioned it to Dipper that John had actually been drawing that symbol for a while after John had practically sprinted out the room and Dipper seemed to be caught between being excited about another piece in this big conspiracy mystery puzzle thing and being concerned about their friend.

Mabel was just concerned about John, they should probably talk about it and they should do it soon. It would be good to wait until John was completely ready to talk but John was the kind of person that would bottle up negative feelings that it would probably be really hard for anyone to spot it. John was the type of person who could have a lot of people care about him but none of them would know that he was having a hard time because he'd never admit something was bothering him! They needed to fix that.

For now though they should focus on fighting the monster and then she’ll have a feelings talk with John! That was a good plan! Though all her plans were good.

“Mabel can you hear me?” Dipper’s voice came through the walkie-talkie as she and John made their way to where the monster or imp as John and Dipper had kept on calling it was.

“Read you loud and clear bro, bro!” She responded as John started lowering them to the ground. After Soos had driven them close they had decided it would probably be best if John flew and carried Mabel so they could avoid the police tape and the crowd and get straight to the action.

“Your supposed to say over when you finish talking” John piped up and Mabel found herself rolling her eyes, oh my gods Dipper your nerdiness was rubbing off on her friend. Though John had always been a bit of a dork, it was one of the things that made him great.

“Good point John over,” came Dipper’s voice who happened to have heard John’s comment before continuing, “Okay I’ve been listening to the news and it looks like the imp is in the old picture shop so it should be cornered, both of you try distracting it and see which one of you can make a hit on it, over” Dipper instructed and both John and Mabel nodded before realizing that Dipper couldn’t see them.

Or maybe he could? He did bring binoculars after all, though they were probably useless since she and John were going indoors to fight the imp and they were probably too far away anyway. She was glad Dipper had let her come along with John though, she knew her twin was worried about her but she didn’t want her friends having to feel like they had to do something by themselves.

They sneaked into the shop quite easily as a Pines this wasn’t exactly Mabel’s first time breaking in somewhere, the imp was amusing itself with a picture frame. Mabel put a finger to her lips to make a shushing sound before taking out her grappling hook and aiming.

It noticed her just as she fired, dogged the hook and jumped at them. Both John and Mabel took a step back in surprise John raising his arms up to defend himself when a huge gust of wind suddenly blew the imp back sending it crashing against the wall.

John stood still in a small state of shock staring at his hands “… Did… Did I do that?” John wondered out loud as the imp began to pick itself back up. Oh no you don’t.

Seeing her chance Mabel fired the grappling hook again this time hitting the imp and it seemed to disappear in its place a bunch of what kind of looked like gushers.

Before she could do anything John seemed to instantly go towards them and they disappeared as he touched them. She looked at him in a bit of confusion but before she could say anything the door to the shop slammed open.

The cops were here…

Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland were waving flashlights around wildly screaming ‘where are you!? Where are you!?’ in a panic before eventually stopping when they noticed John and Mabel standing there instead of the imp.

“Who are you? What are you kids doing here?” Sheriff Blubs questioned them, “We have flashlights!” Durland screamed and the Sheriff seemed to forget them for a moment to calm his deputy down. John and Mabel exchanged a slight look and a grin spread across John’s face as Mabel nodded.

It looked like they had the same idea and honestly it was an amazing idea.

Straightening up John looked at the sheriff and the deputy with a confident smile before speaking. “Thank you for all your brilliant work officers! We have defeated the monster that was plaguing this fine town!” John said over dramatically, oh man she knew that John liked bad movies but this was almost too much. How was she going to out dramatic that?

“The citizens of the town can rest easy knowing that we are here to protect them!” Mabel announced. Nailed it. John gave the officers a casual salute before picking her up and flying past them and out the door. Looking back Blubs and Durland were gazing up at them in wonder.

She and John were barely out of sight before they burst out laughing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mabel just climbed a few rungs on her echeladder. John's outfit looks like his Heir outfit while Mabel's is linked to a certain aspect. John and Mabel are super heroes now I wonder what their super hero names should be.


	16. Chapter 16

She noticed Dipper running up to them before John had even landed, Mabel jumped out of John’s arms and ran up to her twin as soon as they were a safe distance to the ground.

“Dipper! John and I beat the monster!” she announced as she got closer to her twin, excitedly running up to get to him before he got to her she couldn’t believe that they had managed to pull it off. Well actually she could believe it; it had been her idea after all and all her ideas were great.

“Mabel of my gosh did everything go okay?” Dipper asked her his voice was a mix of excitement and curiosity, knowing her brother he probably wanted to interrogate her and John for all the information that he could get but Dipper was also the kind of person to worry about others, because he was great like that and probably wanted to make sure that they weren’t really hurt or anything.

Mabel waved off her brothers concern as she answered him “yeah we’re fine Dipper nothing we couldn’t handle!” she said confidently the imp had been a bit slippery but ultimately easy to beat after all she and John were an amazing team. To be honest the imp kind of reminded her of those first enemies you face in games to get the hang of fighting.

Dipper looked at John as soon as the other boy got close to them the same slight concern Dipper had for her showing on his face towards John. She excitedly pulled John closer to them as she went on about their daring exploits though she might have started exaggerating a little.

“Mabel stop imps are not big enough to through a car at you and the mayor was not there screaming for you to save him!” Dipper yelled in exasperation during the car ride home, John laughing at Mabel’s story and Dipper’s frustration while Soos was eating it up.

“It absolutely did dear brother now shush!” she scolded “now where was I alright so the imp revealed his master plan to destroy the entire world the only thing standing in the way from him and his plans of global destruction was me and John!“ she said in a dramatic voice Soos gasping at it, god she loved him Soos really appreciated her talent in all things.

“Oh come on! John how did it really happen?” Dipper asked interrupting her yet again which was kind of rude if you asked her. So what if she was embellishing a little the story needed more drama and suspense! She’s only giving the people what they wanted honestly!

John shrugged before answering her twins question, “I don’t know what to tell you Dipper it happened exactly like Mabel said” John told him in the most serious face she had ever seen him use, there was a moment of silence before she couldn’t hold it in anymore and burst out laughing not sure what was better John playing along with her or him pretending to be serious when he was clearly messing around. It wasn’t long before John joined her in her laughing fit.

“You guys are the worst!” Dipper groaned as she and John held their sides, eventually they calmed down enough when they needed to breath. Mabel sighing and wiping away what she liked to call a ‘happiness tear’ from her eye while still trying to regain her breath.

“No Dipper we’re the best we defeated a monster and saved the town!” Mabel retorted her brother confidently, she was on that ‘first victory’ high and feeling pretty good about herself right about now. Yeah she’s going to have to tell Dipper what actually happened eventually but for now she is just going to enjoy having a bit of fun.

Something told Mabel that John needed to relax as well, while John was the type of person that seemed like he could take anything in stride she knew that deep down he was probably freaking out about all this junk and needed some time to relax and cool down before they had a feelings jam and nothing eases the mind than poking fun at Dipper. Though she always tried to make sure the teasing was never too mean; Dipper was her twin and she did care about him a ton after all.

Though John was full of surprises she couldn’t believe it when he knocked back that imp.

Suddenly siting up Mabel’s eyes widened as she remembered an important piece of information, “Oh something important that did happen Dipper!” Mabel practically shouted during her realization Dipper sitting up partly from surprise and partly from curiosity while John looked at her in confusion, “John has wind powers!” she continued both boys eyes widening at her reveal Dipper with excitement and John with what she hoped was nothing worse that embarrassment.

“Oh my gosh John is that true?” Dipper asked excitedly and oh my gods he was already taking out his notebook and clicking his little pen, she should really consider taking those things away from him. John laughed nervously before answering Dipper.

“Ha, yeah… I think? I mean I might have caused a large gust of wind but it’s hard to say for sure… it could have been natural, even though we were indoors…” John muttered trailing off towards the end their and Mabel couldn’t hold back her frown. It looks like John was still slightly nervous about the whole power thing. 

Mabel knew that John actually liked his powers anyone could see that by how happy he looked whenever he was flying around but she thinks that the thing that bothers him is the fact that the powers weren't ‘normal’ if he was in a situation where he was supposed to have powers it wouldn’t bother him nearly as much. It was going to take some time but Mabel had already planned to stick with John for however long it took him to realize ‘normal’ was over rated.

“No it probably was you, you have the breath symbol and that has been linked to wind… I wonder…” Dipper muttered thoughtfully chewing on his pen. This was why she never let Dipper borrow her pens or pencils he chewed them raw ‘thinking’. Also Dipper seemed to lack tact during these 'thoughtful' episodes, she was going to have to make sure Dipper handled John better in the future.

It wasn’t long before the truck stopped outside the mystery shack and they all got out, luckily Uncle Stan wasn’t in the living room because other wise he would find out about her and John being superheroes and know about their secret identities and junk. Dipper was still thoughtfully muttering to himself scribbling things in his notebook, she and John collapsed on the sofa and she picked up the remote and turned on the TV.

Mabel had kind just wanted to relax after all the cray, cray stuff that had happened today, maybe watch some cartons about magical girls fighting monsters or pretty boys with alchemy if she bothered to get those DVD’s but when she turned on the TV it flicked over to the last channel it had been on which was the news and what they saw grabbed everyone’s attention.

“It seems Gravity Falls has it’s own superheroes, when the town was under attack from an unknown monster a mysterious duo appeared to defeat it local law enforcement had this to say” The pretty news reporter said before cutting over to a clip of the Sheriff and his deputy who instead of looking scared as they had when facing the imp now seemed incredibly excited.

“They had six packs and lazar eyes!” Deputy Durland shouted excitedly, “Of course we had a handle on the situation but they appeared and took care of that monster saying they’d protect the town before flying off into the night, frankly I feel safer already” Sheriff Blubs told the camera earnestly before the footage cut back to the pretty reporter.

“There you have it, flying off into the night in the middle of the day; it seems as though Gravity Falls has some new protectors and I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is who are they?” the report finished with a blurry picture of John carrying her through the air, someone must have taken it while they were leaving, every one in the room was completely silent eventually the show went to commercials and she heard Dipper mutter a ‘I don’t believe it’ under his breath.

Soos was yelling ‘Dudes!’ as Mabel felt her face split into a huge grin, they were on TV! She turned to John who was sitting beside her who looked like he was seconds from bursting out laughing.

“John we’re famous!”

\---

Dipper wasn’t sure where he was; he had never experienced anything like this before.

Part of him knew this was a dream; he sort of remembered falling asleep after all. He’d been listening to Mabel excitedly talking about her a John being super heroes before bed. He might have drifted off while listening to her?

He felt sort of bad about that but to be fair they did just have a bit of a stressful day what with doing research, making plans fighting monsters and discovering John’s wind powers. John was the key to something big going on in town he could just feel it!

Though like Mabel said Dipper had to remember that John was their friend first and he shouldn’t treat him as some way to solve a mystery, John and Mabel were close but Dipper had also become friends with John, to him John wasn’t just ‘Mabel’s friend’ he was his friend as well and he didn’t want to lose him so he had to be careful not to push John to far no matter how much he wanted answers.

The place Dipper was right now reminded him a bit about the weird dream that Mabel had, had. Maybe that’s why he was dreaming about it though it didn’t look exactly as Mabel described. He wasn’t underwater; there was no trolls instead it looked like he was in some kind of purple kingdom.

That wasn’t being poetic or anything he was literally in what looked like a kingdom in a storybook and all the buildings and castles were made from a purple stone. It looked similar to the legendary kingdom of Derse from the old myths.

What was similar to what Mabel had described was it did seem as though he was in a sort of bubble, though the top of it was shattered right off but instead of seeing the black hole sucking people in outside the bubble instead when he looked up he saw something that make him feel slightly terrified.

The only word to describe what he saw would maybe be Lovecraft like horrors, or maybe some kind of octopus, squid like thing if they didn’t seem slightly terrifying. Some of them seemed injured a purplish blood flowing out from some of them.

This was another thing he thinks he heard about in the old myths, the horrrorterrors.

Dipper stood there frozen in shock and amazement simply looking up at them for whoever knows how long when suddenly they spoke, some spoke some seemed to sing but that wasn’t the weirdest part of it all. The weirdest part was that it didn’t seem as though he heard the horrrorterrors with his ears but instead heard their voices inside his head.

“Mage of Mind!”

It was like thousands of voices were whispering in his head all at once all saying different things yet all saying the same thing. The voices spoke as if they were the most important things that Dipper could or would ever hear and perhaps they were. 

“Mage of Mind the furthest ring is collapsing….”

Another reference to the old myths was mentioned as the horrrorterrors continued to speak; something told him that it was dangerous to listen to them to be looking up at them like this but once they had started speaking to him he felt like he couldn’t move until they were done.

“You are not a natural hero… the mortals wished to play god… but heroes have offered their service to us once before… you could prove more useful than even the Seer of Light….”

When he woke up Dipper found he had the biggest headache imaginable, what was that dream? If it was to be believed then he had work that needed to be done, he wasn’t sure if the horrrorterrors were real and honestly the kind of terrified him; but they held answers. Answers that he needed, answers that he wanted.

He wasn’t sure if his dream was real, the horrrorterrors were enormous, ugly, and lived in darkness. But that doesn't necessarily make them bad. In fact they were shrouded in mystery and Dipper had always found himself drawn to mystery…

Dipper spent the next couple of weeks thinking about his dream, wondering what the best course of action was to take as he watched Mabel and John run around. The two of them had excitedly told Candy and Grenda who had seemed to take up the role of ‘protecting their secret identities’ which mainly was just them coming up with ridiculous alibies for John and Mabel which were somehow less believable than the actual truth.

Candy had also started a blog dedicated the ‘Star Princess’ and the ‘Whirlwind’. Dipper wasn’t sure how Candy had come up with those names and he couldn’t believe that she had made them catch on though Candy’s blog was now the most popular in Gravity Falls due to getting the most pictures of John and Mabel and even interviews with them though it was a lot less impressive when you knew that Candy had made them do it.

Dipper felt like he should begin to do something as the monsters began appearing more and more regularly while getting stronger and stronger. John was learning more about his powers and Mabel was getting even more skilled with fighting and Wendy had even been teaching the two some techniques she knew to help them out with the monster fights but Dipper still couldn’t help but be concerned about his sister and his friend.

There had to be a reason all this was happening and Dipper couldn’t get that thought out of his mind even when he was getting ready to watch his and John’s favorite show with the other boy and even when Mabel, Candy and Grenda interrupted it to get excited over the lame party that the Northwest’s threw every year and exclaimed that they wish they could go.

There was a nock on the door and Dipper rolled his eyes at the girls as he stood up to go get it “guys, in case you've already forgotten, Pacifica Northwest is the worst.” Dipper said remembering all the times in his childhood that he had to watch Pacifica go after his twin for no apparent reason and him getting frustrated at the rich girls weird obsession with making Mabel miserable, he hated to say it but Pacifica brought of his petty side as that was the only way to protect Mabel from her, he couldn’t help but smile as John nodded in agreement.

“Yeah, I’ve only met her a couple of times but she is kind of a pain,” John complained. Luckily for John he hadn’t had to spend much time with Pacifica since he moved to Gravity Falls but Dipper was glad that the other boy could still tell that Pacifica was the worst.

“That’s right John Pacifica is the worst! And this isn’t just jealousy talking. I'd say that to her face.” Dipper said opening the door to reveal none other than Pacifica Northwest standing on the other side looking annoyed and frustrated. Well you know what they say speak of the devil and the devil shall appear. Pacifica didn’t waste any time making her demands as soon as he opened the door.

“I need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enter Pacifica! No Dipper don't listen to the horrorterrors that never ends well! I'm so sorry this is a few days late guys, I've been really super busy. I'm lucky that spring holidays are almost here since this is pretty much the only fic I've been able to make time for lately hopefully the work load I'm dealing with at the moment will die down soon though.


	17. Chapter 17

“You’re the worst” was all he said as he slammed the door in Pacifica’s face which felt as good as one would expect slamming the door in Pacifica’s face to feel like which is to say really good. He turned back to the others so he and John could get back to watching their show only to find the girls gasping and John with his mouth open in disbelief, “see?” he said with a shrug. Let no one say that he was not a man of his word.

He didn’t even make an effort to fight back his frown of annoyance when he heard another knock on the door, as tempting as it was to open the door just to slam it in Pacifica’s face again Dipper somehow resisted the urge and went back to the sofa to sit down next to John taking the TV remote from Mabel and switching back to the ‘used to be about history channel’ when another knock came from the door.

“Um, aren’t you going to answer that?” John asked him slightly hesitantly eyes darting between Dipper and the door. Candy, Grenda and Mabel were all looking at him expectantly and Dipper groaned as four pairs of eyes watched for his next move. What did they actually think that he should answer the door? He literally just established that Pacifica Northwest and her entire family was the worst!

“Look guys it’s Pacifica, she’s been awful to us! If she needs help why would she come here? I say we just ignore her and wait until she goes away!” Dipper defended himself sinking further into the sofa because there was no way he was getting up. He didn’t care if answering the door would be ‘the right thing to do’ or whatever doing the right thing was overrated and he didn’t care how much the others looked at him they weren’t going to guilt trip him or anything into answering the door just because they think he should. He made plans to watch a Ghost Harassers Marathon and he was going to watch a Ghost Harassers Marathon!

Dipper yelled in frustration at the third knock on the door, “Ugh! Fine!” he shouted getting up from his spot and walking over to the door though he made sure to walk as slowly as he possibly could taking special care to drag his feet as he got close to the door. Darn it why did Pacifica have to ruin everything?

“Finally it’s about time!” Pacifica complained when he opened the door, yep he knew this was pointless! “No! No! Wait! Wait! Wait!” Pacifica frantically yelled as he made a move to close the door again. He paused his actions and looked at Pacifica expectantly an eye brow raised as he waited for the rich girl to explain herself and her sudden visit, “Look. You think it's easy for me to come here? I don't want to be seen in this hovel. But there are monsters attacking Northwest Manor!” Pacifica told him before taking off the sunglasses she was wearing as some kind of disguise, to make direct eye contact with him, which might actually be the first time she had ever done that. “If you don't help me, the party could be ruined!” she pleaded.

“How is that our problem?” Dipper asked her and this time it was Pacifica’s turn to raise an eye brow. She looked at him warily and after a moment of silence she spoke her next few words very carefully. It didn’t feel as though Pacifica wasn’t sure what to say, it felt more like Pacifica couldn’t believe that she actually had to spell it out for him.

“I need ‘Star Princess’ and the ‘Whirlwind’ to help get rid of the monsters” Pacifica told him slowly making air quotes with her fingers as she said Mabel and John’s super hero names as if they were the most ridiculous things she had ever said. Dipper’s eyes widened and he heard a bunch of gasps coming from behind him. When he turned to look he saw the girls and John staring at him and Pacifica intently and John had even been eating popcorn.

Mabel quickly ran up to the door to join the conversation, awkwardly leaning on the doorframe and laughing slightly which sounded a worrying mix of forced and hysteric. “Whaaaaaaaat? Pacifica why would we know how to get some super cool super heroes to help you? I mean I guess Candy could put something on her blog for them?” Mabel began to suggest when Pacifica raised her hand to stop her talking and interrupted her.

“Can it Mabel I know that you and that John kid are the ‘super heroes’ that have been running around town!” Pacifica told his sister impatiently while Mabel looked completely shocked only able to mutter a small ‘how?’ and have Pacifica stare at her in disbelief “You’re kidding right? You’re literally just wearing a mask and he’s just wearing goggles, heck I could tell it was you from your voice alone! I’ve had the displeasure of knowing you for years Mabel it’s not like I won’t recognise you just because I can’t see your cheek bones!” Pacifica told them and continued to stare at them in disbelief as they looked at her in shock. Bringing her hands to her face Pacifica groaned in frustration “I hate this town, can’t believe I’m the only one that’s ‘figured you out’ apparently” Pacifica muttered to herself under her breath though Dipper could still hear her.

“Excuse us for one sec” Mabel said before screaming at the top of her lungs “TEAM MEETING!” Mabel yelled causing him and Pacifica to put their hands over their ears before Mabel grabbed him and hurriedly dragged him back to the room with the others who were waiting for them and before he knew it he was already in some kind of group huddle with everyone else.

The hushed whispers of the group mainly consisted of panicked ‘what are we going to do?’, ‘how did she figure us out?’, ‘we were so careful!’ Dipper found himself raising an eyebrow at that last one because honestly that had definitely not been carful or at least not nearly as careful as they should have been.

“Shouldn’t we help her?” John said suddenly speaking up and shrugged as they all looked at him “I mean I know we don’t really like her and all but isn’t it like our jobs as super heroes?” John asked them and Dipper found himself frowning because yeah John did have a point if there were monsters at Northwest Manor then they probably should deal with it, but he really didn’t like the idea of helping out the Northwest’s though.

“Are you kidding me John? Why should we trust her? All she’s ever done is try and humiliate me and Mabel!” Dipper complained a slight bitterness to his tone as he expected someone to agree with him but to his surprise no one did. In fact Mabel was even shaking her head at him.

“No John’s right! We’re super heroes we have to help!” Mabel told him looking determined as the other girls and John nodded in agreement. Oh gods someone tell him that they weren’t going to suddenly tell him that they should all stick to some sort of Super Hero code or something.

“Besides we probably should help her since she knows your secret identities and you probably want to keep that under wraps,” Candy told them with a shrug and Dipper groaned because that was actually a logical point and it would probably be a pain if people knew that John and Mabel had been running around fighting monsters and it could also be trouble if word got out that John could fly.

“Ugh fine” Dipper relented as he went back to the door to tell Pacifica that they were going to help, “all right Pacifica we’ll deal with your monster but in exchange you can’t tell anyone about John and Mabel.” Dipper told her setting out his conditions when suddenly Mabel popped up next to him and he had to keep himself from flinching back in surprise. Mabel could be surprisingly fast and quiet when she wanted to.

“And we want to be invited to the party!” Mabel demanded excitedly, “I’m serious!” she added in her mock serious voice as Pacifica raised and eye brow. Towards the last condition Pacifica seemed to have an internal debate before finally relenting.

“Fine! You’re just lucky I’m desperate!” Pacifica said her voice dripping with frustration as she took some party invitations out of her bag and shoved them into Dipper’s hand while the girls and John cheered chanting ‘Des-perate! Des-perate! Des-perate!’ as Pacifica left slightly angrily making her way to the expensive black car parked in front of the shack that was waiting for her.

Once Pacifica and one of her families many overly expensive cars had left their sight Mabel screeched in happiness, “Grenda, get the glue gun. We're making dresses!”

\---

The Northwest manor was big that was all John could think about as he made his way through it with Mabel. Candy and Grenda were off enjoying the party which they really deserved though the last he had heard from them they were fighting over Candy trying to flirt with some rich dude instead of enjoying the party together like they said they would but John was sure they would work stuff out they were best friends with each other after all.

John was with Mabel looking for the monster while Dipper was keeping his usual position as the strategist of their missions only this time Pacifica was with him so to make sure that they wouldn’t ‘wreck anything’ as usual John and Mabel were keeping in contact with Dipper through the walkie-talky. Though right now he was kind of wishing there was some kind of radio silence going on since he and Mabel had been forced to listen to Pacifica and Dipper bicker every time they turned the walkie-talkie on.

‘Make sure you guys don’t break anything my parents would kill me!’ came Pacifica’s voice and he could hear Dipper groan ‘look just let Mabel and John deal with it and then we should be out of your probably-fake blonde hair.’ Came Dipper’s voice and John struggled to hold back a laugh at the comment.

‘What was that about my hair?’ Pacifica complained when suddenly they heard her let out a scream grabbing his and Mabel’s attention. Mabel was practically shouting into the walkie-talkie asking Dipper what was going on and what happened and John felt a huge lump of dread settle into his stomach and let out a breath that he hadn’t realised that he had been holding as a wave of relief crashed into him at the sound of Dipper’s voice responding.

‘Mabel we’re fine but monsters have shown up where we are so you guys might want to make you way over here’ they heard Dipper say and he and Mabel wasted no time rushing over to where Dipper and Pacifica were. When they got there they saw a mass of monsters nearly every kind they had ever fought as an ogre was inching closer to Pacifica who was moving back to be pressed against a wall.

“John help Pacifica!” Mabel ordered as she immediately without even the slightest bit of hesitation rushed to her brother’s side already taking out her grappling hook and firing and any monsters that were near him. Following Mabel’s instructions he flew towards Pacifica grabbing her and blocking her from the ogres punch with his body as they hit the wall and must have somehow activated some sort of switch as the wall swivelled round putting him and Pacifica in some secret room.

Pacifica immediately crawled away from him and curled herself up into a ball, shaking slightly. John looked at her curiously as she started muttering to herself and was only able to make out ‘I could have really gotten hurt didn’t they know that?’ John’s eyes widened in realisation as he realised what was going on Pacifica was scared though that was pretty understandable after all a monster did just attack her.

“… Pacifica are you-“ he began when suddenly he was interrupted by Pacifica hysteric laughter as she looked up with tears in her eyes causing John to freeze in his tracks. He wasn’t really sure what he should do, even though they weren’t particularly close or anything John knew he should comfort her but how to do that without being incredibly awkward he had absolutely no clue.

“And of course we ended up in here of all rooms!” Pacifica yelled taking out a flashlight that Dipper had told her to carry with her earlier shinning the lights on various pictures throughout the room which showed various pictures of figures doing awful things that John recognised as Pacifica’s ancestors from other paintings throughout the manor. “Only my family would have a painted record of every horrible thing that they’ve ever done as if it’s something to be proud of! Lying, cheating, and then there's me stupid parents just want me to deal with their problems they don’t care what happens to me! They don’t care about anything but their standing with the-“Pacifica paused and looked at him tears threatening to fall down her face. “Never mind you don’t really care you guys hate me after all right?” Pacifica muttered curling further in on herself.

John took a breath before sitting down next to unsure of what to do really, “look Pacifica, I haven’t really spent that much time around you since moving here a couple months ago so I guess I can’t or well shouldn’t make any judgments about you but you know maybe you’d get along better with Dipper if you laid off Mabel a bit?” John suggested because as far as he could see Dipper was the only one that could come close to actually hating her even though from what he heard Pacifica hadn’t actually done anything to Dipper only Mabel but messing with Mabel was reason enough for Dipper to dislike someone he guesses.

Pacifica gave a dry bitter laugh before responding, “I only mess with Mabel because I’m jealous of how lucky she is…” Pacifica muttered causing John’s eye brows to fly up in shock and Pacifica gave another half-hearted bitter laugh when she saw the surprise on John’s face. “I know right why would the girl who was everything be jealous of Mabel Pines? The weird girl? You know I actually used to be a bit like Mabel when I was little, optimistic and silly. My parents didn’t want me to be loud they didn’t want me to be silly they just wanted a perfect obedient daughter that could make them look good and didn’t stop until they got it no matter what it took! Even if it meant locking her up in a closet for hours every time she ‘embarrassed them’” the tears were spilling down Pacifica’s face now “And then there’s Mabel who’s allowed to be herself and is surrounded by people who love her for it and she’s allowed to be silly! And she’s allowed to make mistakes! And I can’t even have one hair out of place-“Pacifica began to get close to ranting when suddenly John interrupted her.

“Do you need a hug?” John found himself asking suddenly, he wasn’t sure why he asked but Mabel always insisted that hugs were important in feeling jams and hugs always make people feel better so it couldn’t hurt to offer. The next thing he knew Pacifica was hugging him and still shaking, as fast as he and Mabel were getting to her and Dipper Pacifica must have had a few close calls with the monsters and that would put anyone in to shock which would explain why Pacifica was so honest with him just now. The hug lasted a few moments before Pacifica finally broke away.

“Can I pay you to pretend that never happened?” Pacifica asked sniffling slightly, and John found himself laughing and shaking his head. With a determined look Pacifica picked up a golf club that was near lying in the room and stood up straight, “okay enough feeling sorry for myself those things nearly killed me and I cannot just let that go! Usually I sue something that does something I hate but hitting it over the head with a golf club works too!” Pacifica noted.

John found himself smiling slightly, he guesses Mabel was right and that all anyone ever really needs is a good cry and a hug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We got a Pacifica chapter! The girl is very stressed and nearly getting killed by monsters that her parents are kind of responsible for does not help, I recommend you guys listen to Life Boat from Heathers the musical for a feel for Pacifica and John's little moment


	18. Chapter 18

“What’s she doing here?” Dipper asked him in an annoyed voice as John tried to calm him down, honestly he kind of expected this he knew Dipper didn’t like Pacifica all that much but that was really just because of all the times that Pacifica messed with Mabel so if Pacifica just apologized then they would all be good. That was the plan anyway.

“I’m here because John invited me Dip-stick!” Pacifica retorted back at Dipper in her own annoyed but slightly dismissive tone. John found himself raising his hands defensively as the glare that Dipper was giving Pacifica suddenly turned into a look of disbelief directed at John. Every bit of Dipper’s face seemed to be asking ‘why?’ or at least a ‘what the hell?’

John found himself staring at his shoes as he shuffled about nervously trying to avoid the slightly betrayed slightly annoyed glare of his friend, “well Pacifica already knows about our um ‘after school activities’” he began making little air quotes when saying the nickname that they had come up with to describe monster hunting when they had to talk about it and they weren’t alone and sometimes just called it that as a joke before continuing. “So I thought that maybe we could allow Pacifica to join the team?” he suggested hesitantly as he waited for the protests that he knew would happen and he was right to expect it because he had barely finished speaking before Dipper was suddenly cutting him off with a series of ‘are you crazy!?’

“Hey let me finish! Please?” he nearly begged trying to calm Dipper down as he noticed Pacifica rolling her eyes at the side though something was telling him that she was starting to maybe feel slightly uncomfortable. Dipper was fully glaring at him now his arms angrily crossed as he waited for John’s explanation. Taking a deep breath John continued, “she was kind of awesome back at the Northwest’s Manor” he recalled thinking of how after she had been shaken up from nearly getting killed by an ogre she had taken a golf club and bashed the nearest monster on the head which was actually pretty cool “and there is something Pacifica wants to say” he finished his eyes darting in-between where Pacifica stood and where Candy, Grenda and Mabel were watching.

“Ugh fine!” Pacifica complained groaning as she made her way to the other girls, there was the longest moment of uncomfortable silence before Pacifica finally spoke again, “look I realise that I may have done some stuff that maybe wasn’t exactly fair to you guys… so I guess I should say that I’m sor- sorry? That’s the word right?” Pacifica asked uncertainly, oh gods was this the first time she ever apologised to someone? John wasn’t really sure what else to do but nod because yeah that was the word and even though it didn’t sound like a heartfelt apology exactly you could tell that Pacifica was trying at least.

There was another incredibly long moment of uncomfortable silence before Mabel broke it by speaking, “wait are you actually apologising?” Mabel asked in disbelief the look on her face almost made it seem like Mabel was finding this funny though it kind of was, he could tell Mabel was studying Pacifica carefully as Pacifica shuffled about a bit what might be nervously.

“Yes! I’m sorry okay!? Do! Not! Make me say it again!” Pacifica complained not making eye contact as the other three girls looked at each other as if they were having a silent conversation before Mabel extended her had to Pacifica who just looked at it questioningly. “What are you doing?” the blonde asked hesitantly taking Mabel’s hand in her own for what looked like and awkward handshake.

Mabel laughed slightly one eyebrow raised as if she still couldn’t quite believe this was actually happening “it’s the hand of friendship and it’s reaching out to you Pacifica!” Mabel joked happily, as Candy suddenly made her way to Pacifica’s side and started making an ‘I’m watching you gesture’ with her fingers.

“I’m not entirely sure if you are meant to be trusted Pacifica but I will give you a chance and if you betray us I will destroy you!” Candy nearly whispered as she leaned in close to Pacifica, and it was times like this that John remembered that every girl he had ever met could be terrifying if she wanted to be as Grenda suddenly picked Pacifica up in a big hug yelling ‘WELCOME TO THE TEAM!’ while Pacifica had a look of shock on her face as if she realised that she might have made a mistake, John chuckled to himself slightly at that as Mabel suddenly made eye contact with him. She gave him a wink as he gave her a thumbs up.

“Well?” John asked turning towards Dipper whose expression was beginning to almost look like he was sulking ‘well see…’ the other boy muttered as John felt himself breathing out a sigh of relief, he was lucky that Mabel was forgiving or this could have gone a different way entirely.

After that Pacifica had become part of the group, she didn’t quite like being seen with them most of the time as she had an ‘image to protect’ and she and Dipper still bickered constantly but at least Mabel and Pacifica were starting to get along, Pacifica was even putting up with the fish puns that Mabel seemed to be enjoying lately in fact they were getting closer all the time Mabel had even offered to try and make Pacifica a kind of disguise which Pacifica refused. It was good having Pacifica around just to talk to as well, they got to complain about their guardians together.

Though it was a bit uncomfortable talking about parents because learning more about Pacifica’s parents John was starting to have doubts towards his mother and was starting to think that maybe it wasn’t right that she treated him the way she did? But that line of thinking made him really uncomfortable so he tried not to think about that and tried to focus on helping Dipper with the town’s mystery.

They had been discovering legends about the ‘creators’ and Dipper was convinced that it was all connected to those myths somehow, they had found an old church dedicated to the ‘creators’ people used to worship them, for some reason the idea of that kind of made John feel uncomfortable or something that felt similar to embaressment. It didn’t take long for them to find a secret chamber which led down to this crypt like place but all they found at the end was this weird kind of pink stone slab with a heart symbol on it. As they were leaving the crypt Mabel noted that the heart symbol looked nice and she wouldn’t mind having it on a shirt as they heard laughter.

Standing by the entrance of the church was a tall man in a yellow suit and an eye patch over one eye smiled widely at them before any of them could speak and ask who he was however he started waving his cane around “Introduction time kids! The names Bill Cipher and I guess you could say I’m the villain to your little superhero games, this might seem kind of sudden but things have been too slow for my liking and now that you’ve finally found this place I think it’s about time to test something I’ve always wondered about.

John noticed that Dipper’s eyes widened in shock as the man, Bill began to speak but none of them had time to react much because pretty soon Bill snapped his fingers and suddenly there was a horde of monster on them.

 

\---

 

6:18

When the monsters attacked everyone ended up separating it was almost like there was a flock of them directed at her, Mabel had been in a couple of fights even before she became a monster fighting superhero and her grappling hook was the most useful thing ever so she could hold her own pretty well. But it was her first time dealing with that many monsters by herself and she was preoccupied by worrying about the others.

John had been trying to get them out and she thinks he succeeded getting the others out, she had been right behind them but had been cut off by a monster at the last minute and was stuck in the church, and she was being pushed back by the monsters who were popping up as fast as she could beat them. Mabel felt herself bump into someone and gasped when she turned to see Bill, the guy who claimed to be responsible for all the monster attacks happening in town. He had a creepy feel to him and even though Mabel had only just met him she was sure she hated him.

He gave her an unnaturally wide smile before grabbing her and pushing a cloth over her mouth; it had a kind of weird chemically smell on it. She struggled for a few moments but began to feel herself getting lightheaded and weaker before everything went black.

6:12

 

Mabel was starting to get used to the dream bubbles she even looked forward to them; they appeared nearly every time that she fell asleep now. The first time she had appeared in the bubbles she had been confused and gotten a glimpse of the most beautiful troll she had ever seen.

The second time she appeared in the dream bubbles she was still confused but her beautiful fish girl was nowhere in sight. She wasn’t underwater that time either, instead she was in some kind of golden kingdom where everything was this beautiful shiny, glittery golden yellow colour. It had sort of reminded Mabel of the magical kingdom of Prospit that she used to read in her fairy tale books as a kid with its golden roads and buildings. Like last time this place also kind of looked like it was in a bubble though there were still cracks up in the sky.

Mabel had been gazing at everything in wonder, confusion and maybe a bit of curiosity when a calm voice called out to her grabbing her attention “Excuse Me Are You All Right?” a slender jade blooded troll called out to her, she was wearing a cute yellow gown and she had spooky ghostly white eyes and what looked like fangs. Her left horn curved into a little hook and also she was really, really pretty.

“Oh boy I am now!” Mabel blurted out before she could stop herself and the Jade blooded troll looked slightly more confused that she already was. She looked like she was going to ask Mabel something when there was a cracking sound and more cracks appeared up in the sky and the jade blooded troll muttered a silent ‘Oh Deer’ to herself. As much as Mabel would have loved to stay and flirt she should probably find out what was going on so she asked where she was which just drew a look of bafflement from the troll girl.

“You Are In The Dream Bubbles Which Means You Are Either Dead Or Asleep, I Thought That Was Rather Obvious. Are You One Of The Human’s That Have Been Mentioned By A Lot Of The Others? It’s A Bit Embarrassing But This Is My First Time Meeting One Of You” The troll explained looking a bit flustered and Mabel just shrugged because she was *a* human alright she wasn’t sure if she was one of *the* human’s this girl was mentioning but she’d figure out that later, she was curious about something.

“Hey have you seen a pretty girl with long hair and gills?” Mabel asked curiously, she figured she wasn’t dead since she kind of remembered going to sleep but if she met the same girl that she saw before in her dream that might be a bit more confirmation that she was not dead. She didn’t feel dead but you never know you know.

“I Assume That You Are Talking About Feferi?” The troll asked as Mabel shrugged because she didn’t really know if that was the right name or not when a voice cut through their conversation and gabbed both their attention, when Mabel turned she saw the same troll from her previous dream looking just as pretty as ever glaring at her with confusion and recognition.

“Sea-riously who are you?” The fish girl, Feferi complained, Mabel couldn’t help but smile when she saw her.

4:13

As time went on Feferi would appear in all the dream bubbles Mabel would end up in, apparently that was an unlikely thing to happen but Mabel felt that if you wanted something enough that just made it likely to happen anyway. It was fun getting to know Feferi and luckily for the both of them it was always the same Feferi she encountered which probably made things a little less confusing. Sometimes Mabel would see another Feferi but only when she was already with her Feferi.

Feferi stuck around Mabel a lot, she probably got lonely what with a big black hole sucking up all her friends. They spent nearly all their time together whenever Mabel was in the dream bubbles apparently Feferi had made them to protect everyone though that just made Mabel feel really sad upon learning that they were all being destroyed and before that the ghost in them were getting killed by a big green jerk.

Mabel tried to cheer Feferi up by showing her places from her memories and Feferi did the same for her, it was weird thinking about a troll only planet with a reverse hemospectrum but she liked learning more about Feferi. She gave Feferi the biggest hug she had ever given anyone when she learnt how her friend had died.

1:25

“You know with all the time we spend together when you’re here I’m kind of like your Patron Troll” Feferi had said suddenly one time causing Mabel to look up in confusion, the other girl laughed when Mabel asked what that meant and Feferi explained that it was a term Kanaya’s human had come up with during the game. Mabel still didn’t really or should she say reely know what the game was exactly.

“These dream bubbles are reelly only supposed to be for players but I’m reelly glad you showed up,” Feferi said sitting down next to Mabel and resting her head on the girls shoulder.

1:11

“Feferi!” Mabel called when she found herself in the dreambubbles once again, Bill had just knocked her out and she needed the trolls advice on how to wake up quickly she did not want to be passed out around that creep! She found the troll looking the same as she did when Mabel had first seen her looking up at the sky filled with cracks worriedly. There were a lot more cracks than usual this time, to be honest that really made Mabel feel uneasy.

“Mabel! You know I think you showing up now of all times… did you do it on porpoise?” Feferi asked playfully though her tone was slightly sad and Mabel noticed that Feferi had been crying, this sight caused Mabel to decide to drop her own issues right now and find out what was happening with her friend.

“Feferi… What happened?” Mabel found herself asking worriedly if someone had hurt Feferi Mabel swore she was going to hunt them down and give them a left hook that her Uncle Stan had taught her, after giving Feferi a hug and some ice-cream of course. That is if Mabel figured out how to get ice cream to the dream bubbles.

“Oh well, the dream bubble I’m in is about to collapse and thanks to your help I’ve been able to travel round a bit and delay some of the damage but I don’t think anything can stop it now, I’m about to be sucked up by that big black hole” Feferi noted with the saddest smile that Mabel had ever seen tears glistening at the edge of the other girls eyes. Was this? Was this it? No she couldn’t except that! She didn’t want Feferi to leave!

“Feferi no! Don’t worry we’ll do something! I can’t lose you!” Mabel found herself saying hurriedly a feeling of panic setting in as more cracks appeared above them and suddenly the tears were falling down from Feferi’s face and Mabel felt a sting of hurt seeing Feferi cry. She didn’t want Feferi to cry, the troll was usually so happy and cheerful. They complimented each other like that; they were great together.

Feferi started laughing and usually Mabel loved Feferi’s laugh but this time it sounded strained and near hysterical instead of its usual light and bubbly. Feferi cupped Mabel’s face in her hands gently before speaking, “you say some reelly funny things sometimes Mabel but you know, I’m already dead and you’re just asleep. You’re going to wake up soon” Feferi said as the bubble began to shatter around them.

0:05

Mabel woke up with a start, tears in her eyes. Her mouth felt dry and her head slightly clouded but that wasn’t important right now! What was important was that she had to figure out how to save Feferi. She knew time traveled differently in the furthest ring but she wasn’t sure how much time they even had.

Looking up she saw she was back in the crypt that they had found before Bill appeared, lying down on the weird heart slab that they had seen. Huh? Why has Bill put her in here? Turning her head even though her movements were still sluggish and her eyes widened at what she saw, at the foot of the slab was a bomb with a timer that was about to run out…

0:00

MABEL. RISE UP.

==>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a day late I know, I'm so sorry but I hope you enjoy the start of my Mabefef or as I like to call it Starfish ship. Feferi is Mabel's Patron troll no debates also things are about to get really interesting from this point on. Also points to anyone who noticed the special Gravity Falls number among all the Homestuck numbers


	19. Chapter 19

Mabel always thought that dying would hurt, that's to be expected right? After all it's *dying* one time she had asked Feferi if it hurt when she died which looking back was probably kind of rude of her even if Feferi hadn't seemed to mind and told her that it had happened to quick for her to tell.

Mabel understood quick deaths but she had always kind of figured that when she died it would be because she got all old and stuff or if she didn't die old it was because her death was tragic and romantic and seemed as though it had come from the pages of the romance novels that she loved so much. Though she hoped she wouldn't have to know what death felt like for a long time for obvious reasons.

Still Mabel didn't expect dying to feel like this, it was almost kind of like something inside of her was waking up and running through her. Like her soul had suddenly come to life.

She was very aware of her own soul and her sense of self suddenly. Everything that was her that was Mabel Pines seemed to be charged with energy and shining brightly.

But more than that she felt she would be able feel people’s identities, their sense of selves, cracks and weak spots but also their strengths and goals, their hopes as well as their insecurities. She can feel how fragile people are and how strong they can be, constantly aware of the one push they need that could destroy them or the push to give them the drive to do something great. 

Their hearts…

And then suddenly she was crashing down back to reality like a shooting start coming to earth. Literally. Some how she had ended up in the sky when the bomb exploded and now she was travelling down to the ground.

But she wasn’t falling, it was like well she was willing herself to the ground it was kind of like what John described that one time when he tried explaining how he flew though she wasn’t ‘feeling the air’ or ‘wind currents’ or any thing sciency like that so maybe he was just trying to sound cool or that was more of a John thing.

She was interrupted from her thoughts when she noticed a familiar blue as she went closer towards it she saw John standing in front of where the old church had once been it was now a smoldering ruin. John was standing their and the look on his face wasn’t exactly shock; it was a bit of shock but there was also a sort of blankness or lack of emotion maybe because he didn’t know how to feel?

“John hey!” Mabel called out to her friend grabbing his attention as John let out a sharp gasp turning around quickly to face her surprise but also hope and maybe a little excitement clear on his face. When he saw that she was flying his expression turned to one of disbelief but not the bad kind of disbelief the good kind.

“Oh my gosh Mabel your flying!” John exclaimed and started an excited chatter at how every one had been looking for her when they got separated and that Bill guy had taken her radio so they thought she might be in serious trouble and then he and Dipper had the idea that she might still be in the church and John when to check since his flying made him the fastest.

Mabel found herself nodding and smiling as she listened flying closer getting to John getting ready to tackle him in a big hug after all the crazy stuff that had just happened but suddenly she felt something that caused her to frown.

It was like she was feeling John? His self? His soul? His Heart? It was kind of what made John well John, it was weird it was almost untouchable like the wind itself; it was breath and freedom and fun and friendship but also with harsher undertones like a cool summer breeze that was at risk of turning into a harsh storm. But there was also a strange patchwork, which felt a little wrong to her as if bits of John had been taken out and a shallow attempt had been made to fill the holes though some parts were rebuilding itself though Mabel had a feeling that those parts that were rebuilding themselves were slightly different to what they were before.

But that was not what was making her frown though, what was making her frown was the sense of apathy a sense of disconnection of blocking the sadness out; while Mabel didn’t like sadness she wanted everyone to be happy she could also tell this wasn’t right. She got the feeling John’s soul had always been kind of disconnected but if you never let yourself feel the bad stuff how could you feel the good stuff?

Maybe it was wrong for her to do but Mabel felt like she had to fix this, it was kind of like the time she decided to take Uncle Stan to a super high place to beat his fear of heights.

As she tackled John in a hug she slightly pushed away the power blocking the emotions from John’s soul it felt like drawing back the curtains and for the first in Mabel wasn’t sure how long she felt John feel what was going on, opening up the bottles in his mind. She didn’t do a lot there were parts of John’s soul that she didn’t entirely understand but she thinks it was enough.

The next thing she knew Mabel found John returning her hug while shaking slightly his breathing a bit panicked and Mabel felt herself panic for a moment wondering if she had broken her friend when he started talking “sorry, I’m sorry I don’t know why I’m crying…” John began as she felt his tears land on her shoulder, “it’s just that when I saw the church I thought… I thought that you died and-“ she interrupted him with a tight hug in return and a slight bitter laugh because she thinks she did die…

Mabel found herself shaking slightly tears coming out her own eyes as the memories of everything that happened came flooding back to her they stayed like that for a few moments when Mabel suddenly gasped as she remembered something extremely important.

Feferi!

“John I know this sounds super weird but a super important friend of mine is in trouble and to save her I need to go take a nap for a bit but I know that I can save her and every one else there!” she told him determination in her voice and her eyes, John looked at her in confusion but shrugged and nodded at her seeming to get that this was important to her, giving a hug of gratitude before breaking away she curled up right there on the ground and forced herself to sleep…

The dream bubbles were even in more of a state of chaos than when she left them; her own bubble that she was in was practically shattered all around her Mabel could see ghosts flying into a black hole. There was one ghost in particular that she noticed as she flew up to catch her. She held on tight as Feferi crashed into her.

“Mabel! Wait why are you in a God Tier outfit?” Feferi asked in confusion noting on her appearance, she hadn’t really taken much time to care what with things not stopping from happening right now but Mabel did note that her outfit had changed; she was in the dress that had a hood it was soft and confortable with a hart symbol on it. She and green shoes and even bracelets and though they kind of looked like pajamas Mabel would admit it was quite a nice outfit.

“Feferi it’s hard to explain but I’m going to save you! I’m going to save all the ghosts you tried to help too and your going to be by my side no matter what because you are my patron troll!” Mabel announced referring to something Feferi had once told her even though she really didn’t understand it but she wanted Feferi to explain it to her she knew that Feferi knew a lot of things she needed to know and Mabel wanted to learn them.

It was weird but ever since she had ‘gone God Tier’ she had a greater understanding of things and knew just what she needed to do. Bringing Feferi close to her Mabel had her first kiss as everything shattered around her, it was amazing best kiss ever honestly if this was a romance novel there would be a thirty page description on how amazing this kiss was it was so good Mabel almost forgot what she came here to do.

Almost, she felt the souls of her and Feferi and drew Feferi’s soul closer to her own. Then she reached out for all the souls of the ghosts and the shattered remains of the dream bubbles sticking them together making new smaller bubbles for the ghosts and pulling those bubbles closer to her as well…

When she woke up she was in her bed which were covered in what looked like marbles all different colors standing over her was Feferi a worried expression on the trolls face. Feferi sighed in relief as Mabel opened her eyes “oh Mabel thank cod!” Feferi greeted as Mabel grinned her plan had worked she was a genius!

Mabel tried to tackle Feferi only to fall right through her the two girls looked at each other in surprise “sorry Feferi-“ Mabel began because oh right Feferi was still a ghost even if this had worked it wasn’t like she could bring her friend back from the dead she tried to explain to Feferi what was happening when the voice of her brother interrupted her.

“Mabel who are you talking to?”

\---

So apparently Mabel has an invisible ghost girlfriend now or something? Honestly it was all a lot for Dipper to process. First they meet the person that has been causing all this trouble in town Bill Cipher; he’s mentioned in the journal as a warning though it’s funny Dipper expected him to be a lot older but meeting Bill was clearly an important step to discovering the mysteries of the town.

But before they could do anything they get separated from Mabel and he and John figured out where she might be and John goes on ahead to find her and when he returns with her while it was a relief Dipper was still confused to find her wearing a weird outfit and asleep and John’s only response was that Mabel said she had to save someone.

Dipper’s only conclusion to that was that Mabel was messing with the dream bubbles and he was right about that. She had somehow brought the bubbles back with her it was a ‘Sylph of Heart thing’ he guesses. According to her outfit it looked like Mabel was a Sylph of Heart apparently?

The bubbles kind of looked like little marbles now there were around 32 of them two of every color of the hemospectrum and another eight. There was one blue one that Mabel said ‘felt like John’ and their friend had immediately decided he did not like that one.

From what Dipper understood of Mabel’s explanations she’d put all the different versions of each ghost into one bubble to save them even if it meant that the different versions would combine into one ghost ‘her Feferi’ was special though as Mabel had tied the troll to her own soul so she could survive outside the bubble though that meant only Mabel could see her while Feferi was following Mabel around like some kind of guardian ghost. Adults thought that Mabel had an imaginary friend now and kept telling her she was too old for that.

But an interesting thing was Mabel god tiering though Dipper was still livid at the idea that Mabel might have died, she could fly now and Mabel had updated her super hero outfit to look slightly more like her God Tier outfit but if flying was linked to a God Tier did that mean John had at some point died and God Tiered? John said he never remembered dying but Dipper was still concerned.

After all that and no more clues they decided to enjoy a bit of normalcy for a while; going to school and just doing normal kid stuff; right now they were walking back from school John had a sullen look on his face looking at a careers form. They were supposed to fill out what they wanted to be when they were older Dipper had put down his dream to have his own Ghost Hunting show, Mabel put down being president of the universe even though Dipper told her that wasn’t a real job. Honestly though his sister in politics would either be terrifying or amazing or maybe both. John however was still undecided though.

“It’s just I’m happy with the way things our right now, I don’t really have any big dreams like… well most people I guess” John muttered when he tried explaining why this was giving him such a hard time which Dipper understood because while Dipper personally wanted to grow up quickly he knew that others like Mabel didn’t necessarily want to grow up as quickly and they were still kids after all but John seemed to be worried that he’s never find what he wanted to do. 

“What about a doctor?” Mabel suddenly suggest as they walked away from the school Dipper and John looking at her in confusion as his twin elaborated “well it’s just that whenever one of us gets injured or anything John always helps fix us up with bandages and he’s like top in our class so he probably has the grades for it and I couldn’t really imagine John doing something that wasn’t helping people… what? Feferi what even is the battlefield and why would it have a tumor?” Mabel started talking to air or rather Feferi it actually wasn’t a bad suggestion since John had been reading first aid books so he could do more than just give someone a Band-Aid John himself started to look thoughtful at the suggestion.

“Oh by the way John why don’t we go to your house today?” Mabel suggested it was a simple suggestion but panic seemed to flare in John’s eyes, John seemed to have gotten more expressive lately and honestly that was good but the panicked expression John was making caused Dipper to raise an eye brow and Mabel to frown in worry as John started to fumble to make excuses for not going to his house.

“It’ll be fine John your mom shouldn’t be back for ages and I’ve never seen your house before!” Mabel insisted though her voice also had a reassuring undertone. John frowned and it was becoming apparent that taking the twins to his house was the last thing he wanted to do but after some more prodding from Mabel the other boy finally relented to allowing the twins to come to his house.

John’s house didn’t really feel very lived in; there were no pictures of John growing up or even anything personal lying around it was almost like a show house there was furniture and yes this was a house but everything was so clean it was hard to believe that people actually lived here. Though maybe John’s mom was just really into being clean. John had them take their shoes off when they got there so it was probably nothing to worry about though Mabel acted horrified to learn that John did not have any snacks but honestly that just explained why John was so willing to eat some of Mabel’s monstrous creations, it was the only junk food he got.

As they did homework and just chatted John seemed to relax a little bit though he still seemed slightly nervous and on edge and completely froze when he heard the sound of the door open signaling that his mom was home, “she’s not supposed to be back yet” John muttered worriedly to himself before turning toward Dipper and Mabel “I’ll just go explain that you guys are here but I… I only sent her a text and didn’t… properly get her okay for you to come over so you guys will probably need to go home soon it’s getting late anyway!” John said giving them a forced smile it was probably supposed to be reassuring but it didn’t feel like that and Dipper had a feeling that it was more to reassure John himself than the twins.

Dipper watched John head downstairs and once her was out of sight Mabel spoke up, “Let’s spy on what’s happening!” Mabel declared already making her way to follow John ignoring any protests Dipper began to make on invading their friends privacy but he stopped and followed his sister when he caught a glimpse of her wearing a worried expression.

Mabel was a bit better at spying than Dipper but luckily his twin had found a place where they could both eavesdrop and listen to John’s conversation with his mother; John was explaining that the twins were upstairs getting ready to leave and that they hand all been studying which John’s mother simply acknowledges before taking out a familiar envelope.

Dipper notices Mabel’s breath hitch as she recognizes the envelope causing Dipper to frown in concern. To be honest Dipper himself was feeling slightly excited when he saw the envelope, it was the letter telling offering someone to be moved to the advanced classes. He knew John did well in class from what Mabel said but it was kind of exciting to have the idea of having a friend in his own classes with him.

Dipper noticed John suddenly speak up and John’s mother began to walk away “wait! I’d like… I’d like to stay in the classes I’m in. A lot of my friends are there and it’s… it’s really fun and…” John said trailing off as his mother slowly walked back over to him and quickly before anyone could know what was happening a slap sounded out.

Dipper’s eye’s widened in shock and disbelief, when Mabel suddenly grabbed his arm and was pulling him back to John’s room her face a look of sadness and anger. Dipper managed to see John holding his cheek and watch as the other boy’s shoulders slump in defeat.

“What was that?” Dipper asked in disbelief once they were back in John’s room as Mabel hurried to pack away their things so they were ready to leave when John came back. She didn’t answer him and he didn’t really expect an answer his question had been rhetorical.

“Feferi, Dipper we all need to act normal when John comes back okay?” Mabel said in the silence and for once since Feferi had become part of their lives Dipper didn’t roll his eyes and Mabel telling Feferi to act a certain way even though she was the only one who could see the ghost. Dipper wasn’t entirely comfortable with just pretending nothing had happened but he didn’t know what else to do he and Mabel had never dealt with something like this.

Fighting monsters and conspiracies was a lot easier than this.

When John came back he greeted the twins as if nothing had happened and Mabel followed suite talking to him in her usual positive manner while Dipper tried not to act awkward. No one mentioned the slightly red mark on John’s cheek.

The twin’s walked home in silence though at one point Mabel muttered “I hate that women,” Dipper wasn’t sure if Mabel was talking to him or Feferi but one thing he was sure about was that he felt the same way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was my Birthday so I've been busy even though it was the spring holiday's and I've been working on a chapter for another fic which is taking forever so this was late I'm so sorry. Anyway next week is an intermission chapter so that's going to be fun. The ghosts are safe and Feferi has joined the team hooray for Mabel.


	20. Intermission 2

Dirk found himself frowning as he watched the signal of another robot go off line; after Dave had called him telling him that there might be a problem he immediately got to work trying to fix it.

Over the years he’d gotten a bit more chill and a little less controlling of other people. He no longer felt the constant need to dictate others actions or felt like if he wasn’t in charge everything would go completely pear shaped.

Still he did want to help the people that he cared about and he did want to do what he could and he especially wanted to protect the people that were important to him. Dave was his brother and held the place of ‘really extremely fucking important’ so when Dave visited him slightly shaking from worry Dirk knew that there was probably a pretty big problem that needed to be dealt with as soon as physically possible.

It kind of surprised him when Dave told him that John had gone missing, Dirk wouldn’t know what to say on his friendship with John because honestly John was the kind of person who seemed like he could be friends with everyone. He seemed nice enough though he and John had bickered a bit in some of his interactions and John had certainly inherited Jake’s attractiveness not that Dirk was ever looking like that or anything but something he noticed about John is that he cared about people which in turn made people care about him.

Roxy fucking loved John and said he was officially one of her BFF’s after knowing him for a day. It made sense with them both coming from the same timeline and they enjoyed joking around together, Jake and John liked talking about movies together and John made Jake comfortable something Dirk was grateful for and Dirk knew that the two talked a lot and Jane was John’s family so it didn’t matter about Dirk’s own thoughts about John because he was an important part of the lives of the people important to him so Dirk decided to do everything he could until John was found.

And that mean after making sure that everyone else was safe to build robots to try and find him.

Dirk had been making tracking robots to try and find John, once they found the missing god they were supposed to bring him back home and send a signal of where they found him so that area could be investigated later.

Not that Dirk was having much luck so far; in fact some of his robots kept going off line whenever they got towards a certain area. That could be important and Dirk made a mental note to tell Rose about it as he got to work on the next robot this time with a greater weapon’s and defense system.

Dirk really wanted to know what had happened to John and he also wanted to know what kept breaking his robots

\---

He was quite honestly starting to get tiered of all these interviews and Jake really wished he had more that he could do to help John. Though John was a strong chap and Jake had no doubt that he could handle himself Jake was still worried John was a trusted friend and someone he liked to talk about movies with. Tavros didn’t seem to get the plot sometimes so it was to have someone who at least came close to being the movie buff he was.

These past few months Jake had found himself missing John more and more. When they were first all informed John was missing Jake was worried but hopeful that John would turn up again but as weeks passed he found his worries grow.

Everyone had been doing their bit to locate their missing chum and Jake was no exception he had gotten quite some power with his company and had appeared on many news stations and talk shows talking about John and asking if any one had seen the missing creator. Unfortunately no luck but he felt that if he kept at it he might find some sort of clue he just had to believe.

Jake had always felt that John understood him and Jake liked to believe he understood John as well; they were both a bit shy until they got comfortable. During the game when all the others and the trolls had shown up he did not really know what to do and mainly stuck to his good pal Tavros. John had always seemed a bit shy upon entering their universe and mainly stayed out of the public eye.

Jake might have done something similar if he didn’t have a company to run, he had rebuilt his Grandmother’s company and hoped she would be quite proud. Skaianet had gotten rather popular and Jake found himself on television like a movie star more and more! He never expected such a thing to happen but it was a nice surprise.

Still he admired John for keeping his life simple. Oh dear he hoped John wouldn’t be too upset when he got back to find he had been in the spot light so to speak. Funnily enough there was much more attention surrounding John when he was missing than when he was there. News channels and stations and papers were all about the missing creator and Jake had been doing interviews talking about John and what he meant to everyone.

Jake was starting to wonder if anything he was really doing was actually helping but he still had to try.

\---

To say Roxy was worried would be putting it lightly to say that she wasn’t mad and pissed off would be a complete and utter lie. 

When John had gone missing Jade brought her John’s smashed phone to see if she could do any of her mad haxs and find some clues. The phone was pretty badly damaged but luckily she had been able to recover a lot of data. She felt a little bad snooping around John’s phones because she did respect her friend’s privacy and they should be entitled to their own private lives and things that they don’t want others to know. Everyone should but this was all to help John and Roxy had totally made a mental note to apologize to John about going through his phone the second that they found him.

Roxy wasn’t sure what she had been expecting but it certainly wasn’t month’s worth of trolling directed at John from Callie’s jerk bro. Roxy had felt pissed off at Caliborn and upset that John hadn’t told them about the cherub bothering him. She could have blocked Caliborn for John so he wouldn’t have to smash his phone. John ‘can’t figure out how to block someone so he smashes his phone’ Egbert was missing and Roxy didn’t know if the future Lord of Time had anything to do with it.

When she had told the others about Caliborn they were concerned that John had been dealing with the cherub by himself and Dirk had wondered if John had actually gone off to fight Caliborn like the cherub wanted but Rose seemed convinced that that wasn’t the case. Rose’s seer powers weren’t telling them what happened to John but Rose was convinced that Caliborn ironically had nothing to do with John’s disappearance.

It was hard to believe but Roxy knew that Rose had her Seer of Light shit down and she trusted her, so now like everyone else Roxy was doing her best looking for her missing friend using her hacking skills to get into any system she could find for anything that might give a clue on people that could go after the creators. It was the usual weirdo’s that went after Janey though and for a while it didn’t seem like anything that was actually a threat until she came across something.

It was something so small and so well hidden that if Roxy hadn’t spent a lot of time growing up simply hacking systems there would have been no way of finding it, Roxy wasn’t sure if it meant anything it was a small system with the data pretty much completely destroyed as if something large had tried to get rid of it. Something about it made Roxy feel like something was trying to cover its tracks all she could recover was a jagged jigsaw sentence.

‘The All Seeing Eye understands the true terror of our creators’

It was kind of ominous as fuck, it could be nothing but Roxy made sure to inform the others about what she had found.

\---

Kanaya sighed as she set another cup of tea down near her wife and went to retrieve the last one she had brought which was now cold and had remained untouched. She was of course worried about John but now she felt her concern growing towards Rose and those of them that were not missing.

Roxy had found something strange and when the Rogue had informed them of it, it was as if a switch had been flicked on inside Rose. The Seer noted that this was incredibly ominous and that a great deal of attention should probably be focused on that ‘All Seeing Eye’. Kanaya found herself sighing at the though of another enemy to face after so long.

She watched as Rose stared with concentration at the crystal ball looking to locate John, the other girl had been at that endeavor for hours each day barely acknowledging anything around her. Suddenly Kanaya say her wife look away from the ball in disgust.

“I Trust That Today Was An Absolute Success?” Kanaya asked fondly using the human sarcasm that she had learnt so long ago, Rose smirked slightly at her looking a bit lighter as the memories of when they were both young and having intricate conversations with each other through online messages.

“You know Kanaya your sarcasm has improved immensely over the years, I can’t begin tell you about how proud I am of you,” Rose began and the Jade blood had to keep herself from laughing at the comment though felt herself blush slightly before Rose continued “to answer your question no I haven’t had much luck finding John. There is something blocking me from him I can feel it!” Rose groaned in frustration and Kanaya felt her body move on autopilot as she took a step closer and put a comforting hand on the girl she loved.

Rose’s shoulders slumped but she looked at Kanaya with gratitude “I know the clue Roxy found is important but I’m not sure where else to go I feel like I’m chasing something blindly…. Am I … Am I too out of practice?” Rose muttered the question to her self but Kanaya was sure to answer it grasping her wife’s shoulders and looking at her in the eyes.

“Rose Lalonde- Maryam you are the most amazing women I have ever met and you deserved every bit of joy you had in these years of much deserved peace and I know that you are skilled enough to protect that peace! Your far to stubborn to let anything ever get the best of you.” Kanaya furiously told her Rose laughing at the last statement before looking at Kanaya lovingly eye’s shining with determination once more. “But before you go off on pursuit again you should take a brake and finally drink the tea I bought for you,” Kanaya all but ordered because honestly Rose had no sense in taking care of herself. Rose smirked and raised an eyebrow but agreed to a short break and thanked her for the tea.

Kanaya found herself smiling at the women she loved with all her heart and hoped that they would all make it though this latest crisis safely.

 

\---

Calliope was dreadfully worried about John especially since Roxy had found out that Calliope’s brother had been tormenting the Heir, even after so long Caliborn was still the absolute worst

She still found it hard to believe that her brother had nothing to do with the trouble that seemed to be brewing and even if he wasn’t responsible for anything bad directly Calliope knew that he was responsible in at least an indirect way.

As far as Calliope was concerned if Caliborn hadn’t bother John so much that he forced the Heir to destroy his phone simply to stop the cherubs jeering then John would have been free to warn the others when trouble had shown up.

Luckily for them all Roxy was absolutely amazing and had found a vital clue ‘The All Seeing Eye’ it seemed small and insignificant to the untrained eye but Roxy had expertly noted that it looked like someone had gone to a lot of trouble to hide that small piece of information and Rose who was a powerful Seer of Light and Jane who was a brilliant investigator and detective noted that it seemed important and so it seemed as though their attention should be focused on that. 

The All Seeing Eye sounded like a marvelous name for their enemy. Perfectly ominous and suspicious but Calliope had no doubt in her mind that her friends would come out victorious against this newest foe especially with them all working together and with out a doubt they would bring John home. There was even a chance the Heir would defeat the enemy himself and be home without them as well. Calliope loved all her friends and believed there was nothing that they could not do. 

Of course they had to convince Jake not to talk about their enemy on live television so that their enemy was not informed that they were on to them. Calliope wasn’t sure what she could do but Roxy convinced her that anything she did might be of help so Calliope had turned to her love of stories to see if there was any clues to be found in there however much of a long shot that it was so now she was spending her days in some of the oldest libraries Earth C had to offer.

Calliope found herself smiling at an old children’s book that was over hundred of years old that she happened to notice in the back corner, she flicked through the story of her friends creating this universe when she noticed something very strange.

How odd, it looked like a small drawing in the corner of the page so small it was easy to miss of a triangle with a top hat.

\---

Jane rubbed her eyes as she looked through the stack of papers on her desk; when John had gone missing she had taken adds out and bought billboards asking for his whereabouts and even promised a large reward. 

She had background checks and interviews done of everyone in the neighborhood of where John lived and while they found nothing major there were reports of strange noises being heard that night. Jane found it incredibly suspicious how most of the houses around John’s house seemed to empty. They were all for sale for some reason.

Though Jane could guess that any house so near one of the creators would be worth a fortune and that no one could simply afford them Jane decided to look into the realtor company and anyone who had ever shown interest in the houses. Surprisingly looking into the realtor company was easier said than done as they seemed to owned by another company who was owned by another company, who were owned by someone else and so on and so forth. It was long and confusing and Jane was tempted several times to simply throw in the towel and ignore it yet her sleuthing skills told her to follow this particular cookie trail and finally it seemed as though she was coming to the end of the particular rabbit hole and had one name to show for her hard work.

Northwest.

Now that led to a whole new rabbit whole as she began researching them; it was hard as the company appeared to be quiet but Jane felt shivers run down her spine as she noticed their reach. The Northwest’s were quiet but they were everywhere and if it weren’t for how successful Crocker corp and Skaianet were then it would be safe to say that they owned everything not to mention that the Northwest’s were old it was practically impossible to tell how far back they dated.

Something about it all did not sit right with Jane and she wondered if they could be wrapped up in John’s disappearance but it was hard to tell who the Northwest’s were or who controlled them. Regardless the Northwest’s were a possible threat to Crocker corps success so Jane supposed that she would have to deal with them anyway but it was still concerning for her.

Looking up from the piles of information she had found not truly knowing if it was all relevant or not when she noticed her phone buzz, picking it up she noticed a message from none other than a Mr. Dirk Strider waiting for her.

timaeusTestified [TT] began bothering gutsyGumshoe [GG]

TT: So I’ve kind of found John  
GG: O:  
GG: You have? Dirk that’s great!  
GG: Wait what do you mean kind of?  
TT: I know his general location but it seems to be in a dangerous area  
TT: I’ve been sending out robots to look for him and noticed that some in certain area’s have been getting destroyed   
TT: So naturally I built more with more deadly weapons  
GG: Naturally  
TT: See I knew you’d understand, anyway one of the robots seemed to have found John but was quickly destroyed after that.  
TT: All it could do was send out a signal saying that it found him  
TT: I’m going to tell the others but I think we should be careful to not rush in there since we don’t know what has been destroying my robots and we don’t know if John would stay put  
GG: Hmm  
GG: I think your right, we’ll need to consider everything before we make a move but I can send some security to fly over there to try and look into that area   
TT: Thanks but it’s best not to let normal people get in danger  
TT: I’m going to talk to Rose and Roxy and see what they think  
GG: That’s probably for the best but good job Dirk this is our first major lead!  
TT: Thanks,  
GG: :B  
GG: You’re welcome

gutsyGumshoe [GG] ceased bothering timaeusTestified [TT]

Jane sighed but this time it was in relief they had a clue, which was just what they needed. They were going to bring John home soon. She decided to call her dad to inform him on the progress they had made, she knew he had been worried about John.

\---

Time travelled strangely in the furthest ring, Terezi knew this. For her she had been looking for Vriska for nearly a year; she wondered how long it had been for her friends back in Earth C apparently it had been a lot longer for them her friends should be 10 sweeps by now or twenty years old. Whichever way of keeping time she felt like at the moment. Every time she thought about how her friends were now older than her Terezi found herself wondering how long it had been for Vriska.

She hoped that Vriska was okay after going after Lord English, she better be okay because if she wasn’t Terezi was going to be so pissed off. It had been a weird year so far. The dream bubbles were collapsing and ghosts were flying past her in to a black hole. At first she had been a bit concerned about it but eventually she had gotten so used to she could take a picture of a Nepeta flying into a black whole and not even bat an eyelid or whatever the weird human expression was.

Some of the dream bubbles were still relatively intact though, which was good whenever Terezi needed to stop and rest, however recently she’d been hearing about something strange. Apparently a new human had been interacting with the ghosts in the dream bubbles. Terezi wasn’t sure how this was possible but she was definitely curious and was kind of hoping that she’d run into them. It had been a while since she messed with a human it would be fun.

Terezi had been debating on whether to tell everyone back in their universe about this new mystery human and was waiting until they actually encountered them to find out if they’d be a problem or not. She’d been keeping in touch with them and after finding out that John was missing decided to keep the unknown human to herself until she had more information.

Those dorks were probably freaking out back there and they didn’t need more stress. Terezi was worried about John herself, he better get himself sorted out and found soon or Terezi was going to add him on to her growing list of losers to find.

It was at that moment that Terezi smelled something strange, strawberry bubble gum pink lit up the sky covering the ghosts and the dream bubbles and the furthest ring itself and when it disappeared she noticed the furthest ring weirdly empty.

Well this was unexpected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! Chapter on time! Boom! I was not creative with the name for the big bad organization, here we saw the Alpha kids and Terezi and Kanaya. Calliope might as well be an Alpha Kid to be honest, join us next week as we watch the kids fight Dirk's robot.


	21. Chapter 21

Dipper found himself glaring at Pacifica and felt his anger over flowing; it was a familiar feeling he had practically hated Pacifica for a while before she had somehow started to become an okay person. Dipper had actually started to like hanging out with her as weird as that sounded but it looked like she was going back to being the worst again.

The weird thing is Dipper kind of felt a bit hurt by the change back to the old Pacifica, it had started a little bit after Mabel had gotten her powers and whatever friendship that had been building between Mabel and Pacifica seemed to hit a road block and some metaphorical invisible barrier was separating Pacifica from the rest of them. Dipper guesses that it had always been there but he always had kind of felt that it was more Pacifica being stuck up than anything but now it seemed more prominent.

Lately Pacifica had been condescending and rude towards Mabel and Dipper was not going to stand for it. They had decided to go a bit further into the woods outside of town to do some more investigating going to the outskirts outside Gravity Falls a bit away from the old church where they had met Bill.

Wendy had been telling them to be a bit more cautious after they mentioned that Mabel might have died in fact the teen seemed kind of freaked out about it which kind of made Dipper feel a it bad so they decided that since they were going kind of near where that old church used to be they should maybe keep everything quiet; they didn’t even tell Soos which Dipper knew was just going to break the guys heart if anything happened and they had to report on in. Dipper was kind of hopping that nothing did happen despite the fact that he wanted to find clues to uncover the town’s mystery just so that Soos wouldn’t find out that they had kind of left him out.

They had decided to leave right after school and following that logic Pacifica really shouldn't even be with them on this mission since she goes to a different school than them but Mabel made sure to invite her which Pacifica should be grateful for but she made a huge fuss about riding the bus and complained the entire journey there. Dipper felt that he should get some kind of award for not killing her yet. 

When they got to where they wanted to be they decided to split into teams of two Mabel was with Grenda, Candy was with John and Dipper had decided to be with Pacifica so he could confront her on whatever the hell her problem was. Though it looks like John knew him too well because the other boy had followed him and Pacifica and as usual John was trying to play peacemaker between the two of them and trying to calm him down as soon as they started arguing.

Dipper felt himself frowning in frustration as his friend tried to make excuses for Pacifica yet again who was crossing her arms and refusing to look at any of them. He noticed John take a moment from trying to calm him down to turn to look at Pacifica “Dipper does have a point Pacifica you weren’t really very nice just now,” John said as Pacifica gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes and scoffed at them and Dipper felt himself using every ounce of his restraint not to yell at her some more and simply felt his anger overflowing. 

Pacifica opened her mouth to speak but from the look on her face Dipper could just tell that she was looking down on them and he was in no mood to deal with the stuck up princess so with a huff he turned away from her “you know what Pacifica forget it I can’t believe Mabel is even half as forgiving as she is to you because you definitely don’t deserve it!” He yelled over his shoulder before he started to angrily storm off away from the others out of the corner of his eye he could see that Pacifica had flinched slightly at his comment. Good! If Pacifica had any sort of conscience then she deserved to feel bad for how she had been acting!

“Dipper hey wait!” John called out to him but Dipper wasn’t in any sort of mood to try and find any compromise with Pacifica or anything like that and simply kept on walking ignoring John’s calls from behind him. 

It didn’t take long for Dipper to realize that John’s calls weren’t getting quieter despite him walking further away from where they had been and finally looking back he saw that John had been following and chasing after him; turning to properly face John raising an eyebrow as he did so John looked slightly sheepish for following him before asking him a question “Dipper are you okay?” and at that question Dipper felt a groan escape him as he dragged his hands down his face.

“Just what is her problem!?” Dipper asked in frustration as John gave a little shrug because he didn’t really have an answer, which was okay because Dipper hadn’t really expected one it was just that he wanted to voice his annoyance with Pacifica a tiny bit more.

“She’s just jealous,” A voice suddenly said beside the two boys causing them both to jump back in surprise. Dipper may or may not have given out a small cry of surprise. Turning to look at the source of the voice they both saw Candy who neither had realized followed them. Oh right he didn’t want to admit it because that would be rude but Dipper had kind of forgotten that Candy had been with John.

“What do you mean that she’s jealous?” John asked looking at Candy curiously which was a pretty good question because what could Pacifica possibly be jealous of anyone about. The girl was from a family that ate tiger meat for crying out loud.

“Pacifica is having romance problems,” Candy began but was interrupted by a loud groan of frustration from John who suddenly looked completely done with the conversation and a small laugh of disbelief from Dipper. Candy eyed both of them silencing them immediately because they both knew Candy well enough to at least be a bit scared of her as she started to explain her line of reasoning. “Pacifica like, likes Mabel-“ Candy stated before she was once again interrupted.

“What!?” Dipper cried out in disbelief not quite sure if he heard right as Candy and Dipper both rolled his eyes at him. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world and not something completely impossible because there was absolutely no way right?

“Yes. And?” John prompted for Candy to continue with a voice that seemed to say that she wasn’t giving him any knew information but before the girl could open her mouth to say anything Dipper turned to look at John in shock.

“You knew?” Dipper said in disbelief as John simply shrugged at him and said, “It’s kind of obvious Dipper,” John told him and Dipper was pretty sure his mouth might be hanging open right about now.

“It’s pretty obvious to anyone whose last name isn’t Pines apparently, well no I’m pretty sure your Uncle might know but anyway can Candy continue without getting interrupted?” Candy asked them eyeing the two boys. Dipper and John exchanged a slight glance before John shrugged seeming to give Candy a signal that she was good to continue which Candy gave a slight smile at.

“Pacifica like, likes Mabel and the two of them were making progress but unknown to Pacifica Mabel meets a cute dream ghost girl. Now if it was just in dreams that would be fine but now Feferi is here even if only Mabel can see her and so a romantic rival practically appeared out of no where and is stealing Mabel away before Pacifica can even do anything,” Candy finished her explanation and Dipper could feel the gears in his head turning, Pacifica was jealous of Feferi and so she was lashing out at everyone as a defense mechanism or something? No, there was no way it couldn’t be.

As Dipper was processing all of this John’s eyes widened in realization as if he suddenly remembered something, “Wait Candy if you’re here with us does that mean you left Pacifica alone?” John asked and as soon as the question left the other boys mouth Pacifica’s scream cut through the air.

\---

John felt himself filled with worry as he flew to where they had left Pacifica and where her scream came from Dipper and Candy had started running quickly behind him as soon as John had left the ground. Looking back at them to check that they were going to be okay before he sped up to get to Pacifica John noticed that Candy was messaging Mabel probably to tell her that Pacifica could be in danger.

John mentally slapped himself for not thinking about leaving Pacifica alone when he had gone after Dipper; he had just chased after the other boy without giving anything except Dipper any thought. Maybe he could rationalize that he thought that Candy would have stayed with Pacifica but of course he should have realized Candy would have wanted to stick to the teams that they had set out and follow him.

Not only did this put Pacifica in physical danger but this also felt like a pretty crappy thing to do as a friend. It must suck to get into a fight with one friend and then have everyone run after them; he knew Pacifica wasn’t as confident as she made herself out to be which made John feel even worse. He probably had the best idea of the true Pacifica since that time he and Mabel fought monsters at Pacifica’s mansion, he should probably be trying to look out for Pacifica more! 

Ugh he had so much to apologize for later.

When John finally got to where they had left Pacifica he saw her brandishing her weapon of choice a golf club pointing it towards, was that a robot? At first John had felt relieved that Pacifica looked okay but then confused because at first he mistook the robot as someone wearing silver, shiny clothes or maybe armor but when he got closer John noticed the nuts and bolts and wires and broken off pieces of metal. 

John also noticed that despite it’s human like shape the thing was missing a head though he was guessing that that wasn’t a design choice as it looked pretty obvious from what looked like maybe burn marks that the head of this robot had been blown clean off by something though John wasn’t sure if he wanted to know what. In fact the robot looked pretty damaged in a lot of places with missing bits of metal and wires sticking out and sparks flying in places whenever it moved and a couple of scratch and burn marks.

John kind of doubted that Pacifica could do all that damage with just a golf club in the short time that she had been alone so this thing must have been in a fight with something before getting away and making it’s way over here. 

John almost felt a tiny bit sorry for the robot when he noticed how damaged it was but when he also noticed that it was pointing a sword at Pacifica he summoned up a large gust of wind knocking it back into a tree it making a large crashing sound as it hit, dropping it’s sword before John flew down next to Pacifica’s side standing protectively in between Pacifica and the robot.

“Are you okay?” He asked immediately trying to get Pacifica behind him who instantly looked slightly relieved to see him. Despite the fact that they might be fighting a killer robot John felt a slight smile creep onto his face at Pacifica’s relieved expression because that might be the happiest Pacifica has ever looked to see any of them.

Pacifica’s thankful face then turned into a slightly confident one as well as what John had known Pacifica long enough to tell was a fake annoyed face. “It’s about time you showed up Gods! It just caught me by surprise it didn’t do anything thing to me don’t worry” Pacifica told him and John wondered if she was trying to reassure him. Turning back to Pacifica he gave her an apologetic grin.

“I’m so sorry we left you alone Pacifica I promise it won’t happen again,” he told her in the most sincere voice he could manage and Pacifica actually looked slightly taken aback by this and stared at him in disbelief before bighting her lip as if there was something she wanted to tell him but wasn’t sure if she should when suddenly they were interrupted by the sound of sparks flying off the robot and the sound of clanking metal as it moved towards it’s sword.

“That’s nice and all but we’ve got to deal with that thing first!” Pacifica told him John turning his attention back to the robot before the metal man jumped at him and pushed him to the ground holding him in place, as it made contact with him something seemed to click and with a small light coming from a hole in the hand without a sword and began to scan him. John could hear something whirl inside of the machine as he summoned up another gust of wind to push the robot off him getting ready to attack it when suddenly it spoke.

Well spoke might not have been the right word it was a robotic sounding voice that must have used the person who made the robots voice as a base. Like a robot-sounding version of Dirk’s voice, as soon as John thought that last thought though it disappeared before he could even comprehend it and his mind suddenly felt full of static.

“John Egbert located. Sending signal now. Checking for any injuries. Sending location please wait for collection-“ The robot listed off actions when suddenly a familiar hook pierced it’s chest flying straight through it pushing out and shattering a large green rock which John could assume was powering it because the robot immediately stopped moving and fell to the ground lifeless.

“John are you okay?” Mabel called running up to him with Grenda following quickly behind but weirdly he wasn’t really looking at the two girls running towards him and Mabel’s voice sounded far away and he didn’t think to respond to it.

The voice that had come from the robot sounded familiar and suddenly there was some kind of static in his mind a weird buzzing in his head.

He knew that voice from some where…

He knows some one who liked to build robots that matched that voice right?...

There was static that filled his mind as he tried to chase that train of thought that he just …couldn’t put together and it was like he was trying to remember… something… but he didn’t know what and there was a weird buzzing in his head as he tried to think about what he was supposed to remember…

But… he couldn’t… what was he trying to remember?

“John! John are you okay?” Mabel’s desperate voice called to him knocking him out of his thoughts and back to reality her hands on his shoulders looking at him worriedly. It looked like she might have been shaking him slightly and he could practically feel the slight panic radiating off her.

“Yeah Mabel I’m fine,” he quickly reassured her as he started to collect him self. Mabel looked relieved but not quite convinced which John couldn’t really blame because he didn’t even know what just happened. Whatever he had been thinking about was gone and he wasn’t sure why he had been spacing out.

“Okay well that’s a relief,” Mabel noted as she helped John up to his feet doing her best to give him a reassuring smile which made John feel kind of guilty for making her worry. Mabel glanced behind her and John looked over her shoulder to look at the now dead robot lying on the ground, which Candy was examining.

Candy and Dipper had just arrived and Candy had made a beeline towards the robot while Dipper had made his way towards him and Mabel, John chose not to take any notice of the worried expressions Pacifica and Grenda had in his direction and instead turned his attention towards Dipper.

“Are you two okay?” Dipper asked as both John and Mabel nodded and Mabel began to wave off Dipper’s concerns telling him to relax. After having a short bit of banter with Mabel Dipper’s attention turned towards the robot.

“What is that thing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So even though Mabefef is a fun crack ship for me I'm just going to say that Mabifica is my OTP. Anyway robot fight! Now the kids have got a dead robot which could possibly be a lead for them as far as they are concerned. Hmm if only they knew an old man who was good with robotics, oh wait they do! Points to anyone who can guess who's appearing in the next chapter!


	22. Chapter 22

John shifted a bit in his seat to try and get comfortable to no success though it wasn’t the seat that was the problem even if there were technically four kids in the back of Soos's truck though Feferi didn’t really count since she was invisible and also a ghost but Mabel was insistent on everyone bunching up to leave space for Feferi to sit down. Ever since fighting that robot the uneasy feeling that had been inside him would not go away, something felt familiar but not. It was hard to explain which was frustrating in its own way and thinking about it all kind of gave him a headache. 

He slumped in to his seat head resting back as he stared uselessly at the roof of the inside of Soos’s truck. Why did things have to feel so complicated? He missed the days when he would just goof around with Mabel and all he had to worry about was keeping his mom happy. But now he was worrying monsters and villains called Bill and robots that appeared out of no where and flying powers that appeared to be contagious because now Mabel could fly too which he still felt kind of guilty about for not protecting her then. What even was his life?

John slightly raised his head when he heard Wendy’s voice come from the passenger seat in the front, “are you guys sure this is the best idea?” Wendy asked them as they made their way to the junkyard. After the robot had attacked them they had told Wendy and Soos; Wendy looked kind of stressed out for a second while Soos looked torn between being impressed by a robot fight and bummed that he missed it. There was a lot of talk about what to do next Soos suggested fixing the robot and asking it what it wanted but Wendy had quickly vetoed that idea.

Candy suggested they take the robot to McGucket; an old man who lived in a junkyard who sometimes built robots that went on a rampage. John and Mabel had dealt with his monsters before when the old man was terrorizing a lake to get his sons attention. Old man McGucket was weird and a little bit unstable but he was pretty harmless though John guessed he could see why Wendy would be hesitant to let a group of kids ask him for help.

“Well McGucket is the only robot expert any of us know, he’s probably the only one in town that could figure out what the deal with that thing even is,” Dipper responded thoughtfully but John could see the other boy practically jumping in his seat at the chance to possibly solve another clue of ‘the puzzle that was Gravity Falls’. He felt a small smile creep onto his face as Dipper started going on to Wendy about some theories that he had. It was really cool that Dipper could get excited about that and it was also kind of comforting because seeing Dipper get excited kind of made John feel excited and that made some of his stand off feelings to whatever they were doing die down.

Dipper’s excitement was slightly different than Mabel’s excitement. Mabel was his best friend and it was always great to just let himself get swept up in one of her plans but recently John had been noticing that Dipper’s was kind of special though he’s not entirely sure he could explain it but he was glad that Dipper always seemed to be planning the next step and whatever strange or weird thing that happened the other boy just seemed to be fascinated by it. It made John feel a little less abnormal and he was really grateful for that.

“I just don’t see why we couldn’t have waited a day for the other to be here when we do this,” Mabel complained before pausing and tilting her head a little as if listening to someone before speaking again “I know they were all busy Fef that’s why I said we should wait for them” Mabel told Feferi at this point they had all excepted that there was an invisible ghost that only Mabel could see it was actually pretty cool anything to do with ghosts was automatically amazing.

But Mabel did have a point right now it was just Soos, Wendy, Feferi, him and the Pines twins. Pacifica said that she had a family thing she said she wasn’t allowed to miss and Grenda had a date with that Marius guy she met at the Northwest party and was bring Candy along to act as a kind of wingman. It seemed kind of harsh to leave those guys out just because they were busy though, it must be nice to have more of a life outside this stuff but Dipper always felt like if he didn’t jump on a clue as soon as he got it then it would disappear so it looked like they were going without a few members of their team.

So as soon as they got to the junkyard they began looking for McGucket. Dipper started calling for him as soon as they got there and Soos joined in pretty quickly as well “Old Man McGucket, are you here?” Dipper asked out for what had to be the fifth time.

“Here hillbilly-billy-billy-billy.” Soos called and John was caught between laughing and rolling his eyes. Turning his head though John managed to spot just the person that they had been looking for.

“Hey wait!” John suddenly called out to McGucket grabbing the older mans attention with the others following him as John started running towards the inventor. Luckily McGucket didn’t run away at the sight of a bunch of people running towards him but unfortunately he did something that he always did around John for some reason, something John always found slightly awkward.

McGucket bowed to him.

“My Heir! What can I do for the honor of ya visiting me?” McGucket asked while bowing and John had to suppress a groan, he could hear Mabel giggling behind him along with a ‘seriously’ from Wendy. He didn’t know why McGucket kept on confusing him with a old god from mythology or why out of all the creator did McGucket have to confuse him with the Heir of Breath.

There wasn’t really anything wrong with the Heir of Breath per say, and it was true that both John and that particular creator had control over wind and John’s symbol was of the breath aspect… but John had always felt that the Heir was the least interesting of the Creator. Yeah he was the leader and supposedly really powerful but John had always felt compared to the others the Heir was just… kind of plane.

Maybe that’s why McGucket kept on mistaking him for the Heir; after all without his powers he wasn’t really all that special…

John suddenly was knocked out of his thoughts when Dipper suddenly walked passed him to talk to the inventor, “McGucket! We need your help!”

 

\---

 

McGucket had been super excited to help them! Mabel didn’t know what John was always complaining about being mistaken for a creator clearly had its benefits! But she was starting to wonder if it was really some kind of mistake because when she tried telling Feferi about why it was funny that McGucket called John the Heir her friend seemed to insist that McGucket wasn’t making a mistake.

But John being a creator how is that even possible?

Mabel found herself looking at the dream bubbles that she had brought with her to the real world. It was hard to explain but she somehow had a feeling that the ghosts inside were all in status kind of which was probably for the best because there was only one ghost per bubble and it would probably get lonely being by your self for who knows how long time passed in there.

Mabel had been working on some ideas on what to do with the bubbles but she could never really find the time to act on any of those ideas. She probably should soon though because she needed answers that the ghosts might have because talking to Feferi just left her with more questions. The troll made it sound like the mythology was real and it kind of sounded like Feferi might have even been part of it. Was that even possible?

Shaking her head Mabel tried to clear her thoughts and focus on the task that they had set out to do. While McGucket said he would work on the robot he also showed them a couple of his inventions and revealed a really suspicious looking energy source coming from the outskirts of town. Naturally this sparked her twin’s interest so of course they were checking it out!

They ended up finding a huge building complex which was super suspicious and after discussing what to do Dipper concluded they were ’going to have to break in’ though her brother looked so ridiculously happy about that it was adorable.

So now they were sneaking through a strange, mysterious, unknown building that none of them knew about despite the fact that except for John and Feferi they had all lived in Gravity Falls their whole lives so this thing was clearly well hidden. The plan was to try not to get caught and figure out what the heck was going on with this place.

Eventually they came on a room that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie there were big glass containers with something that looked like an aspect in each one. She heard John gasp as they spotted a familiar looking face jotting down notes on a clipboard in front of one of the containers.

It was John’s mother.

So John’s mother was working in some sort of shady, probably evil building making John’s mom a probable bad guy. Mabel hoped someone picks up that phone because she totally called it!

“I’m sure there’s some kind of explanation for why she’s there,” a panicked whisper came from John and Mabel frowned at herself. How could she forget to consider John’s feelings at his mother’s totally inevitable betrayal? She’d have time to let everyone know how right she was later right now she needed to make sure John was okay. Just as Mabel was about to say something which would have probably been really comforting a cold voice cut through the silence towards where they were hiding and watching around the same time a bunch of security guards appeared and started grabbing them.

“Well it seems you’ve all uncovered this little secret.” Mr. Northwest said fixing his cufflinks as he walked up to them. Mabel’s eyes widened in shock as she saw Pacifica walking obediently behind him and next to her she could hear John whisper ‘Pacifica?’ in disbelief.

“What’s going on here?” Dipper angrily demanded struggling against the guards trying to restrain him as Mr. Northwest gave a slight smile. 

“Tell me young man what do you know about the Creators? Or if that question is too hard how about a more personal one, have you ever known anyone to ever leave past the area surrounding the fine town of Gravity Falls?” Mr. Northwest asked though they were obviously rhetorical questions as he didn’t give them time to answer but the answer to the second question was clear on all their faces.

No one has ever left Gravity Falls.

Mabel kind of liked it; it kept everyone she cared about close to her but now that little fact seemed ominous.

“People have entered” Dipper retorted and that’s right! John moved here after all and Uncle Stan would sometimes hint at the fact that he didn’t grow up in gravity Falls too!

But Mr. Northwest just gave a condescending smile at that statement. “Only because we have let them dear boy. Let me tell you a story, one I’m sure your familiar with but with a slight twist on things to show the truth behind it. The Creators made this world on a whim for a ‘game’ that they played. They then left this world to grow with the promise that they would return and eventually they did and started treating this world as their plaything. There were a few wise few that began to make counter measures long before the creators returned to fight back if the creators should ever turn… hostile. Of course you’ve seen our attempts to make aspects but quite recently we’ve already dealt with one of the creators the Heir of Breath.” Mr. Northwest explained and oh my gods the bad guy monologue was an actual thing. Mabel would have probably considered it lame if it wasn’t for the fact that the situation they were all in right now was actually kind of worrying.

“So what did you kill the Heir of Breath or something?” Dipper asked and Mabel was almost shocked to see the hate shining in her brother’s eyes but she guessed she understood. She hated the fact that she couldn’t get free her powers looked like pretty pink lightning but it couldn’t actually hurt anyone or be used in a fight. She hated Mr. Northwest’s condescending tone and she hated the fact that Pacifica was just standing there refusing to look at anyone them in the eye with a guilty look on her face.

“You guys are butt faces!” Mabel yelled out because she felt the need to do something! Well done Mabel that would definitely show them! Though what she said was definitely true theses guys were absolute butt faces. This whole situation itself was a bit of a butt face.

Mr. Northwest looked slightly surprised by Dipper’s accusation before regaining his composure “kill him? Don’t say such things we’re humans how could we possibly kill a god? I assure you the Heir of Breath is very much alive, isn’t that right John?” Mr. Northwest asked and Mabel was sure they all gasped at the same time. John’s face had a look of shock, confusion and disbelief as they all tried to process the bomb that might have just been dropped on them.

“Wh-What…? I am… what?” John muttered being seemingly unable to comprehend what they were all being told though Mabel had a sinking suspicion that it was more that John didn’t want to acknowledge where this conversation was leading to rather then he couldn’t.

“Like I said you’re the Heir of Breath,” was the simple response that he got and all of a sudden John looked kind of broken as if he didn’t know how to respond or what to do with the information that he had just been given.

“…Huh?” was the only thing her friend seemed to be able to say cocking his head slightly to one side.

“Do I need to be clearer? All right then the Heir of Breath and John Egbert are one in the same. The Leader of the Creators, One of the Gods that created this world, The Hero of the Land of Wind and Shade, the Royalty of Prospit, the One Who Controls the Wind that is all you. That is who John Egbert really is, the you that you’ve been these past few months is nothing more than something we created-“ Mr. Northwest went on and on and Mabel started struggling more as her friend began to look more and more stressed.

“H-hold on seriously what are you talking about!?” John asked interrupting Mr. Northwest’s monologue like explanation.

“L-Liar… There’s no way…. There’s no way that John is one of the creators!” Dipper called out his expression some how looking even more angry but now he also looked slightly unsure Mabel wondered if Dipper was feeling anywhere near as confused as she did right now. Thanks to Feferi she kind of saw some of this John being a God thing coming and even she had no idea what to do with what Mr. Northwest was telling them.

“Yeah John’s just a kid how can he be a god?” Wendy angrily asked as well, Mabel could see that the older girl had been struggling against the guards this entire time and looked just second away from flipping one of them, a couple looked like they just had there noses broken and wouldn’t be seeing out of one of their eyes anytime soon.

“Well of course we had to make him a bit more manageable…” Mr. Northwest said trailing off a bit and at that moment John looked as if something had clicked into place, his eyes widening in realization and he became incredibly still and snapping to attention.

“What did you guys… do to me?” John asked in barley whispered in a horrified tone.

Mr. Northwest waved a hand dismissively, “nothing much: used a few aspects to make you take the form of a child, took away your memories of being a god of course and attempted to put a few false ones in luckily most people don’t actively look at their memories unless they want to reminisce and we all assume without even checking that the memories are there. We also had one of our scientists pose as your mother to properly examine you. There was a big debate over whether we should simply raise and train you as a weapon right off the bat but then we assumed that we could raise and indoctrinate you into the cause for more solid loyalty but it looks as though that was unsuccessful. Oh well I guess we can always try again, we still have the mind aspect after all but it is a shame I even had my own daughter watch you” Mr. Northwest went on and Mabel wanted to cover her ears because oh gods this was awful. Dipper’s outraged scream cut through the room and he the look on his face was one of complete and utter betrayal.

“Pacifica you were a spy! We trusted you! I trusted you! You lied to us! I was right about you all along. You're just as bad as your parents. Another link in the world's worst chain!” Dipper yelled fuming at Pacifica who for the first time since they had been caught looked at them… there were tears in her eyes…

“I didn’t want to! I'm sorry, they made me! I should've told you, but-“ Pacifica began to say her voice sounded desperate almost like a cry for help when her father interrupted her by ringing a bell and blushing Pacifica stopped speaking and took a step back.

At that moment Wendy flipped a guard that was trying to restrain her and kicked one that was holding Soos and punching another that was holding John freeing them both though John dropped to the ground like a puppet with it’s strings cut. Mabel and Dipper both used this opportunity of a distraction to squirm free of the guard holding them Mabel bighting the arm of hers for good measure.

Dipper immediately ran to John’s side grabbing his arm and dragging the other boy up to his feat. “Everybody run!” Dipper shouted as they all scattered in different directions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who stayed up until five to write this chapter? Hint it was me! Lot's happened in this weeks chapter but I'm really excited about next week, it probably has a scene that I have wanted to write for a long time.


	23. Tell Your Heart To Beat Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yesterday's a closing door  
> You don't live there anymore   
> Say goodbye to where you've been  
> And tell your heart to beat again

Pacifica didn’t know why she had decided to run when everyone else did, she just did. Maybe it was just force of habit? She had gotten so used to being part of the team that she might responded out of some kind of reflex. It wouldn’t be the weirdest experience she’s had since she joined them.

A dark laugh slipped out of her mouth without her permission at that last thought.

Part of the team? Joined them?

When had that ever actually been true? She might have actually felt like it was. For a while there it almost seemed like Pacifica had actually found a place that she belonged not that it even really mattered anymore. She’d betrayed them… It wasn’t like she wanted to, hell it wasn’t even really planned. The society had released monsters to test John’s abilities and they happened to end up at Northwest Manor so when her parents asked the society to help or more to complain to them the Northwest’s were simply told to find a way to draw the Heir of Breath to the Manor to test him.

Training their ‘weapon’ was all that mattered to the All Seeing Eye and the family’s status in that fucking society was all that mattered to her parents.

So naturally instead of doing anything themselves Pacifica’s parents had sent her to get the Heir to deal with those monsters that the society made. It was only logical they had told her; after all the Heir had been drawn to the Pines family and Pacifica had dealings with the Pines. It was impossible to tell her parents no so like always she did what she had been asked.

But she had been in danger and it was one of the many times in her life that Pacifica had been reminded she was less important than the family name but for the first time in her life some one had been there and the next thing she knew John offered her a place on the team and all of a sudden she had friends, and a mission and she actually felt like she was doing something good!

So of course like everything her family poisoned it.

When it was noticed that she had become friends with John the society decided that it might be useful to have a spy in the little group of ‘monster hunters’ they asked her to watch what the group did and report back which wasn’t like she was doing anything really bad. Just betraying the trust of the first people she’s ever spent time with that seemed to care about her as a person. 

Not that she ever really had a choice over it and her family that always loved to remind her about how social status was the most important thing; the only thing they thought was more important than status was winning and looks they had told her not to mess up ‘this opportunity’. 

Well she hadn’t! They had!

Now Dipper… John… Mabel, they all hated her. But to be honest she couldn’t really blame them she hated herself she hurt good people to better her standing with the society just like every Northwest does. They were allowed to hate her, Dipper had always kind of hated her anyway but it still hurt even if it was justified she was alone again.

Pacifica curled further into herself hugging her knees as she formed a little ball in the corner of the room that she had run into. She was fine with being alone, she didn’t need anyone else…

“Pacifica!” A familiar voice called Pacifica raised her head weakly because of all the people to find her it had to be her. Standing at the door was probably the person who she had the most complicated history with out of anyone. Someone that made her heart skip a beat. Someone that could make Pacifica feel nearly every emotion at once who was laughter and innocence and everything Pacifica wondered if she could be if her parents hadn’t poisoned every aspect of her life.

Standing in front of her was none other Mabel Pines it was kind of surprising that they happened to end up in the same place to hide but what was even more surprising was that Mabel wasn’t wearing a look of betrayal or hatred like you would expect, like Mabel should after what Pacifica did. Instead Mabel looked at Pacifica with gentle concern.

“I’ve, well we’ve been looking for you,” Mabel muttered awkwardly and oh right Pacifica probably should have expected this she betrayed them so they probably wanted answers and everything right? And after that they would want nothing to do with her it was only natural.

Pacifica turned her head away from Mabel as the other girl began to sit down next to her.

“Pacifica… What happened back there?” Mabel asked but it didn’t sound like a question meant for interrogation, Mabel’s voice was actually dripping with concern. As if Pacifica hadn’t done something awful as if they were actually friends. Mabel Pines was the most confusing person she had ever met sometimes, the girl forgave way too easily and nothing could bring her down and the most important point Mabel made her feel something in her chest that was making the fact that Pacifica betrayed her even worse.

Despite the lump forming in her throat another halfhearted laugh made it’s way out of her. “Isn’t it obvious Mabel? I betrayed everyone…” Pacifica admitted finally allowing her eyes to glance over at Mabel who was looking at her with a frown of concern all over the other girls face. Why? Why did Mabel look like she still cared about her? Why wasn’t she screaming accusations of betrayal like Dipper had?

She just didn’t get it.

“Yeah but you didn’t want to” Mabel’s voice noted in almost a whisper and at that Pacifica suddenly found herself laughing hysterically because it was so ridiculous it was funny, on some level she knew Mabel hadn’t said anything specifically laugh worthy but the hysteric laughter just spilled out of her mouth until there were tears forming in her eyes and her laughs started turning into sobs.

Gods her life was such a joke!

“No I didn’t want to! I lied to you just because I'm too scared to talk back to my stupid parents! Dipper was right about me. I am just another link in the world's worst chain.” Pacifica started to say not really paying attention to the words coming out of her mouth eventually her breathing became more regular and she realized Mabel was rubbing her back in a comforting gesture while she sniffled. Ugh she was pathetic this was the second time she’d cried in front of some one. 

But it kind of helped to get it out of her system or it did slightly when she cried in front of John, she thought as she attempted to rub some tears away, “I’m sorry Mabel… for what it’s worth I really did enjoy hanging out with you and everyone. I never wanted any of you to find out about any of this…” she admitted truthfully though Pacifica wasn’t exactly sure what she’d expected to happen. They were bound to find out eventually after all.

“Pacifica… we’re just kids, none of this is your fault, so your parents are jerks and have gotten involved with an evil organization that doesn’t mean you have to be like-“ Mabel began when Pacifica cut her off, she didn’t understand how Mabel could still seem to trust her like this but there were things that Pacifica felt she needed to say before anyone decided to even think about what to believe about her betrayal.

“No Mabel you don’t understand, the society has been the Northwest’s ‘benefactors’ since like forever. They raise children into working for them and John’s had the chance to have a taste of a normal life but they’re going to take that away from him and he’s going to forget everything again! I was always told by my parents how lucky I was that I was a Northwest and that I had the blessings of the society but I wasn’t raised to serve them like so many others but… hanging out with you, John, Dipper and everyone… I’ve started to realize that this isn’t normal… my parents aren’t… normal… and I’m going to end up like them one day aren’t I?” Pacifica said not really meaning her last statement as a question and more like a horrible truth she was starting to realize she couldn’t escape as she hung her head in defeat when suddenly she felt another hand on top of one of her own.

“Pacifica…” Mabel said hesitantly before continuing with a hint of determination in her voice, “I’ve known you for a long time and yeah a lot of that time you were a bit of a jerk but I think I’ve gotten to know you quite a bit; both good bits and not so good bits and I don’t think you’re like your parents. Yeah your outside has the same expensive clothes and hairspray like they do but inside you're like sunshine and you're just as big as a wonderful mess as anybody is. Your parents are jerks but you’re nothing like them! You are you and that can mean anything you want! You-“ Mabel had started saying everything Pacifica didn’t that she wanted no needed to hear from someone! Anyone! Only to be interrupted by something.

It took Pacifica a few seconds to realize that the something that had interrupted Mabel had been her, and it took a few more seconds of enjoying a sweet taste and a comforting scent to realize that she was kissing Mabel.

As soon as Pacifica realized what she was doing she pushed the other girl away, Mabel’s face had a look of surprise as if not fully realizing what had happened a slight blush forming on the other girls face.

“Oh gods no that was a mistake,” Pacifica muttered to herself; her face felt like it was on fire “I’m leaving!” she said in a panic as she rushed to stand up but Mabel was suddenly trying to drag her back down to the ground with her.

“Pacifica wait!”

“Umm… We are definitely interrupting some thing here aren’t we?” An awkward voice came after a cough that suddenly grabbed the two girls attention and standing before them was John looking slightly awkward but also kind of happy it almost looked like her was proud of her? And next to him was Dipper who had a look of disbelief on his face.

“How long have you two been standing there?” Pacifica whispered her question in horror as John started rubbing his neck awkwardly while Dipper gave her a straightforward answer.

“Literally the entire time, we were right behind Mabel.” Dipper deadpanned.

Oh Gods

\---

Feferi Peixes was only six sweeps old when she died.

Sometimes it really hit her how young she had been when it had happened. She always tried to stay positive, she always told herself that everything would be all right. Growing up she had to keep that mindset because she had all these expectations placed on her. She was supposed to rule Alternia one day after all, she was supposed to kill the Condense and take her rightful place on the throne; that is was her lusus had always whispered to her. That is what had always been expected of her.

So when Alternia had been destroyed honestly it had been a relief. Or should she say re –reef? Nah that one was as awful as Eridan’s puns but she had been happy to be free of all the responsibility that was placed on her and the freedom that she could just live her life. She even let Eridan down as gently as she could because they just didn’t work and that kind of relationship wasn’t supposed to make you so tiered and exhausted right? So when she didn’t have to worry about him anymore she was sure that everything would work out even if he still acted like a bit grumps and kept on picking fights with Sollux.

She had had a new matesprite and everything was so knew and exciting! Even when Jack had attacked their session and stopped them claiming their prize, even when Derse and Prospit had been destroyed and all their dream selves had died she was sure that everything would turn out fine!

And she was right! Things did turn out fine! Things turned out fine for the people that survived, they had all banded together and won the game and finally got the prize of their very own universe. It’s just that some people died… and she happened to be one of them…

Maybe she had been too complacent maybe her belief that every thing would be fine is what led to her death, she didn’t see how unstable Eridan had gotten until it was too late and she couldn’t even stop him.

Death wasn’t so bad to be honest she did wake up in the dream bubbles not long after and she did feel a bit of pride that she had managed to create these dream bubbles that saved so many ghosts and gave them a chance after life… but those ended up being destroyed… What she thought was saving those ghosts was just allowing them to exist long enough to be destroyed by the Lord of Time and that might be even worse and then afterwards her dream bubbles collapsed and all the ghosts got pulled into this horrifying black hole of nothingness.

Sometimes even though she knew she and everyone else were safe now, she could still hear their screams.

Her bubbles simply opened up more possibilities for suffering. She hadn’t saved anyone! She hadn’t done anything; she didn’t even join the army to fight Lord English! She didn’t want to fight she didn’t want responsibility and because of that she basically lost everything.

There were talks between the ghosts of Terezi flying around the bubbles an alive one and when she had heard of that she had felt hope that maybe there was a chance that they could all be saved. But no that Terezi was only looking for her Vriska who was also still alive not caring about the ghosts that were being dragged into non existence.

It made sense though why should the living care about the dead?

Sollux had visited her sometimes during her time in the bubbles, but their quadrant seemed to end almost immediately after she had died. He was only half dead and decided to stay with Aradia who was now God Tier and alive. Feferi didn’t like thinking about sad things she liked to stay positive but sometimes she wondered if Sollux had only ever been with her because she reminded him of who Aradia used to be that she was nothing more than a replacement that he didn’t need anymore once Aradia went back to normal with a god tier revival.

But she didn’t like to think about that and besides she was dead and he was still half alive and half alive was still alive she guesses and why should the living care about the dead?

So Feferi did what she always and just left things as they were until she met Mabel and she suddenly wondered why she had never really interacted with humans in the first place. Sure she had interacted with Jade a bit but Mabel was wonderful and amazing and unique and made everything exciting again!

And Mabel ended up god tiering and saved all the ghosts just to protect her and she wasn’t put in another bubble like the other ghosts because she was special to Mabel and Mabel allowed her to exist outside the bubbles by attaching her to her soul and it was almost like she was alive again and even if Mabel was the only one that could see her it didn’t matter because things were exciting again.

She was a little surprised that John was there with Mabel but she hadn’t interacted with him much before so she didn’t really know all that much about him so when the bad guys had revealed what they had done Feferi really wished that she had talked to John at least once so she could help him in some way and tell him who he used to be. 

When they all ran she, Mabel, Dipper and John had all ended up in the same room and Dipper and Mabel had comforted John, he was naturally confused but the twins were there to support him and John seemed grateful to have them stick by him. 

Mabel then offered to give him the dream bubble that contained his ghost self in the form of a small marble telling him that he could use it to maybe have an idea of what his other selves was like but John looked a bit hesitant about it which was understandable and asked Mabel to hold on to the bubble for him. Then surprisingly Mabel had handed Feferi a bubble containing the combination of her other selves in case Feferi decided to learn more about herself as well.

Unlike John she kept her little marble bubble but she wasn’t sure what to do with it except glare and it; true she had met other Feferi’s but she never really knew what to think.

John seemed to pull himself together rather quickly after that and suggested that they look for Pacifica, he didn’t believe that she had betrayed them of her own free will and Mabel agreed with him though Dipper seemed to be hesitant.

But John and Mabel had been right and for a second Feferi had sympathized with Pacifica they both had pressure put on them but maybe they had too much in common because Pacifica kissed Mabel.

Mabel had once told Feferi that their kiss when Mabel saved the dream bubbles was Mabel’s first real kiss and Feferi was happy about that but she knew after what Pacifica did she wasn’t Mabel’s only kiss and Pacifica had a huge advantage over Feferi. 

Pacifica was alive, Feferi wasn’t and why should the living care about the dead?

Feferi was stuck as a ghost but Mabel wasn’t, Mabel was going to age and grow and move on but Feferi wasn’t and it wasn’t fair before she had always been sure things would be all right but now she wasn’t sure. Was Pacifica going to steal Mabel away from her?

That was her thought as she watched Pacifica flounder around in front of Dipper and John who had witnessed her kiss with Mabel, Feferi had also witnessed the kiss but that didn’t really matter because only Mabel could really see her. 

John hugged Pacifica and said that he hadn’t doubted her despite everything while Dipper stood there quietly eyeing Pacifica before walking up to the girl and putting a hand on her shoulder “Pacifica, I'm sorry about what I said earlier. But just because you're your parents' daughter doesn't mean you have to be like them. It's not too late.” And Pacifica gave him a small grateful smile before Dipper continued, “But this is the last chance we are gonna give you, three strikes and your out okay?” Dipper warned and Pacifica rolled her eyes before putting on an image of confidence once more.

“Yeah fine I get it dip-stick” Pacifica muttered though her tone was lased with happiness as she ignored the ‘hey’ that Dipper let out.

“Okay let’s get out of here!” John declared as the Pines twins nodded in agreement and started to make escape strategies only to be stopped by Pacifica.

“We can’t leave yet! They’ll just try and erase John’s memories again and this time they really will raise him to be a weapon we need to take out those aspects! They are unstable and the containment grid connects them all. All we need to do it destroy the glass on one and they will all collapse!” Pacifica told them and John, Mabel and Dipper all looked at each other as if they were having a silent conversation before nodding and turning to Pacifica.

“Lead the way,”

It wasn’t long before they were in the room that kept the man made aspects, not all of them were there but Feferi could easily pick out the time aspect, the mind and heart aspects, the light aspect and the her own aspect the life aspect.

Pacifica ran down the walkway towards the light aspect and Feferi followed her, she could walk a bit away from Mabel after all and stopped in front of her aspect, the life aspect.

Feferi was supposed to be the Witch of Life but she died, she lost everything her friends, her matesprite, her throne and even in this new universe her entire caste had suffered because she couldn’t show paradox space that there was a good fuchsia blood! And now she could even lose Mabel.

Vriska had always talked about relevancy and everyone had always thought she was silly but she was right. Feferi didn’t try and protect herself and she died and lost everything and no one cared because only the living mattered! Feferi wasn’t sure if things were going to be okay she wasn’t sure if anything was going to be okay but she wanted to some how protect what she still had. She didn’t want anything else to be taken from her.

Her grip around the dream bubble tightened, how many versions of herself had died? Feferi didn’t want to be dead; Feferi didn’t want to be a ghost. She felt tears falling down her face as she stared at the life aspect, her aspect. She was life how could she be dead? She wished that she hadn’t died.

Feferi wanted to live.

\---

Two girls had kissed Mabel in her life and honestly both experiences felt amazing, but it did put her in a tricky spot one girl she had chemistry with one girl and another girl she had history with. Romance was hard she needed to find advice from somewhere one day. But right now she couldn’t help feel worried as she looked down at both girls from the walkway. 

Pacifica had seemed determined while Feferi seemed a little lost and drifted naturally to what Mabel knew was a copy of the trolls aspect. Pacifica’s actions Mabel kind of understood since Pacifica seemed to be determined to stop the bad guys after being used by them but Feferi Mabel wasn’t so sure about. Mabel just hoped Feferi wasn’t upset about the kiss.

Mabel was still processing that one herself.

Mabel watched as Pacifica got out her gold club and raised it to swing at the glass that held an aspect that kind of looked like a sun when a voice called out and Pacifica tensed up and froze in her tracks.

“Pacifica Elise Northwest! Stop this instant! We can't let the Society’s aspects be destroyed on our watch! We have a reputation to uphold! Now come along.” Pacifica’s father called out to her from behind Mabel and the other’s as John and Dipper glared at him. Pacifica made eye contact with Mabel, her eyes almost pleading with panic but Pacifica didn’t lower the golf club or move from her position.

“You dare to disobey me?” Mr. Northwest said in distain taking out and ringing a bell as Pacifica nervously pulls her golf club back while he continues to ring it. “Dingally! Dingally! Is this bell broken?!” Mr. Northwest asked in impatience when Pacifica suddenly stomped down her foot silencing the bell.

Our family name is broken! And I'm gonna fix it!” Pacifica yelled bringing the golf club against the glass shattering it and almost like a chain reaction the other glass containers began to shatter the aspects collapsing in on themselves one by one like dominoes all except for the light and the life aspects. The only two aspects that had someone near them, the light aspect seemed to envelope Pacifica and the life aspect enveloped Feferi shattering the bubble Feferi had been holding. 

If Mabel hadn’t God Tiered at this point she probably wouldn’t have been able to experience what happened next, the light aspect seemed to attach itself to Pacifica’s soul, it went inside of her. Meanwhile all the past selves of Feferi seemed to join into and become part of her.

Mabel had to turn away and shield her eyes as sparks began to fly from all the exploding equipment but when the dust finally cleared she gasped at what she saw. Pacifica was lying unconscious in front of where the light aspect used to be which was definitely something to be worried about but that’s not what made her gasp, standing in front of where the life aspect used to be there was Feferi but she wasn’t wearing her usual outfit; the same outfit she had worn when she died. She was wearing a brownish outfit with a hood and the life symbol on it and sparkly shoes and stripy socks and pretty pink wings had sprouted from her back.

But the thing that surprised Mabel was Feferi’s eyes; they weren’t ghosty white eyes anymore. They were yellow with a bit of black in them they were the eyes of the living.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feferi was brought back to life because she never should have died in the first place. This weeks chapter I decided to do something a little different; since it's focused so much on Mabel's love interests what with Pacifica rebelling against her parents and gaining an aspect (I've always imagined her being a Knight of Light) and Feferi coming back to life I decided to do the chapter from their perspective instead of the main three with Mabel chiming in at the end.
> 
> Since I did something new with the chapter I also decided to give it a title to show that it was special but we should be back to the usual next week with Mabel picking up where we left off.
> 
> The chapter title comes from Tell Your Heart To Beat Again By: Danny Gokey which I felt was a good fit for both Pacifica and Feferi (Let the ship wars begin)


	24. Chapter 24

There was a moment where Mabel felt as if the world had been put on pause; every one seemed kind of frozen staring in shock at what had just happened. There was the occasional spark of electricity coming from some of the destroyed equipment and the room that held the aspects was now a mass of broken glass, wires and small fires staring in various parts it was hard to believe that Pacifica had done so much destruction in seconds with just a gold club.

Mabel was honestly really impressed.

At the center of the destruction was Pacifica and Feferi, though Pacifica looked unconscious and Feferi had undergone a bit of an outfit change and she didn’t look dead anymore. Not that Feferi had ever *looked dead* Feferi actually had always looked really pretty but the troll had told her that the dead had white ghost eyes and that when someone realized that they were dead in the dream bubbles their eyes turned all ghosty.

Mabel didn’t think it was possible for ghosts to change their eyes back to normal so what had happened with Feferi?

Suddenly as if breaking some unknown spell that she didn’t even know had been cast John moved and started flying towards Pacifica a look of determination on his face. “Dipper call Soos and Wendy we need to get out of here!” John called over his shoulder. Oh shoot! Soos and Wendy! They’d all gotten separated and Mabel had gotten preoccupied with the Pacifica situation! She hoped they were okay, she knew that Wendy was like a warrior princess but they had better not have hurt Soos.

Dipper seemed to jump to attention with John calling his name “Oh right,” Dipper mumbled and started fumbling with his pockets to get his walkie-talkie out to try and contact Soos.

John making a move seemed to make nearly everyone else spring into action, it was funny but John always seemed to be slightly calmer in crazy situation and Mabel briefly wondered as she started to follow John to where Feferi and Pacifica were if John could deal with dangerous stuff as some sort of after instinct from his lost memories.

Unfortunately for them Pacifica’s father Mr. Northwest seemed to jump into action along with the rest of them turning to leave the room yelling ‘Guards!’ So who knew how long they all had before they had to deal with another problem?

“Pacifica can you hear me?” John asked Pacifica as he lifted the blonde to stand up supporting her with one of her arms slung across his shoulder. Pacifica muttered wearily that sounded kind of garbled but Mabel found herself letting out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding John looked similarly relieved.

It was good to know that Pacifica wasn’t dead or unconscious or anything Mabel had kind of been worried there for a second.

After seemingly deciding that Pacifica despite being slightly out of it was okay enough John turned towards Mabel and looked over her shoulder, “um… is she going to come with us?” John asked in curiosity one of his eyebrows slightly raised and Mabel noticed when she turned to look at the other girl that both she and Feferi had matching looks of surprise at John’s acknowledgement of the troll.

“You can see her!?” Mabel blurted out before she could stop herself pointing in Feferi’s direction who still seemed surprised and looked like she was only just now noticing her new outfit and wings.

John raised one of his eyebrows at the two of them “um, yes? Am I not supposed to or something?” John asked them and what the heck was Mabel supposed to say to that? She’d kind of gotten used to being the only one that could see Feferi for a while there it almost made her feel kind of special like she had some sort of magical bond with Feferi though Mabel guesses that was pretty much exactly what it was. Sure she would get a couple of weird looks from people every now and then when they saw her seemingly talking to nothing but that was no big deal people have always given her weird looks what else was knew?

What was she supposed to do, pretend that Feferi wasn’t there when she was in public? No way! Feferi was her friend and Mabel loved her! What kind of person would she be if she ignored the people she cared about just to fit in?

However in regards to John’s question Feferi seemed to be on the same page as Mabel as because Feferi muttered a small ‘yes’, which caused John to roll his eyes, John opened his mouth to say something when the sound of blaring alarms cut him off.

Ouch those were loud! Mabel instinctively covered her eyes to block out the shriek of sirens that were going to get real old real fast. Looks like Pacifica’s father had gotten to his guards and someone had decided to flip an alarm switch.

“John we need to go!” Mabel yelled over the alarm because she didn’t want to think about the guards that were coming to deal with them, sure she and John could fight monsters easily but she wasn’t exactly sure how comfortable John was with fighting people and also Mabel didn’t want to take the risk of Mr. Northwest calling the main bad guys.

She wasn’t exactly in much of a hurry to meet that Bill guy any time soon.

“Right!” John agreed with her nodding before turning his attention towards Feferi once more “can you fly?” John asked her and Feferi looked a little surprised that John was addressing her before hesitantly nodding.

“Shore! These wings aren’t just for show!” Feferi said with slight uncertainty in her voice but enough conviction that John gave her a nod before flying over to Dipper who was by the door looking at them worryingly. Dipper said something Mabel couldn’t make out to John before taking Pacifica’s other arm, slinging it over his shoulders and the two boys supporting Pacifica carried her out the door.

“Nice choice of words!” Mabel shouted encouragingly at Feferi causing the troll to blush slightly because even though the situation was kind of crazy right now Mabel loved that Feferi still kept or should she say kelp-ed up the fish pun thing. Feferi could have said sure but no she said shore like seashore! 

Feferi was amazing.

Grabbing Feferi’s hand the two of them flew up towards the door and into the hallway before spotting Soos helping Pacifica climb out of the wind that she guessed was there escape route. 

Good at least Dipper explained to Soos and Wendy that Pacifica was one of the good guys.

“Wendy is in Soos’s truck, she’s acting as our get away driver,” Dipper explained when he spotted Mabel he looked relieved to see that she had managed to follow them okay and she was a little relieved herself that Dipper and John hadn’t run into any trouble themselves when they went on ahead; she nodded at her twin before climbing out the window herself. 

After that they all made a mad dash away from the building worthy of a prison break movie piling into the car that Wendy had already started up. “Wait who’s she?” Wendy asked spotting Feferi squeezing in next to Mabel.

“Feferi!” Mabel said simply with enthusiasm in her voice as it was starting to hit her that Feferi was alive again! People could see her! Though the other’s eyes widened slightly in shock at the confirmation which Mabel kind of got because yeah this was all kind of surprising.

“Feferi’s real!?” Wendy blurted out in surprise and disbelief and Mabel fought down the frown that threatened to make its way onto her face at that response.

“Wendy drive!” John pleaded as the older girl hit the gas and they sped away from there. It wasn’t until they were parked outside the Mystery Shack that they all seemed to calm down sitting in silence before Wendy gave a small laugh and the rest of them began to join her.

Oh my gods that was crazy!

\---

Dipper paced around listlessly while waiting for his Uncle Stan to finish with the most recent tour of the Mystery Shack. Come on Uncle Stan every one else was going to get here soon hurry up!

Dipper was seriously regretting even considering talking to Stan; he should have known this would blow up in his face like this. His Uncle Stan has confiscated his journal. Well confiscated might not be the right word since his Uncle promised to give it back but Stan seemed to make it clear that he didn’t take the journal seriously.

After all the craziness that had just happened: learning that John was once a being that created the universe and Mabel’s kind of girl frond, girl friend! Damn it they were stating to get him to do the fish puns as well! Were those things contagious or something?

Any way Feferi came back to life most likely from being exposed to the artificial life aspect and actually being able to talk to Feferi also opened up some disturbing implications with their conversation because from what he could gather from the stuff that Feferi told him she was one of the Zodiac. One of the ones that died due to being ‘unable to over come mortal sins and failed the challenge Skaia had set for them’ if the myths and legends could be believed. Though the stories made it sound a lot worse that what Mabel and Feferi implied it actually was.

Friendship or rather as the troll girl called it Frond ship problems. Though if your problems with your friends result in death maybe that’s a sign that your friend groups need a good looking at. But on the bright side of his conversations with Feferi, he now had someone to discuss the horror terrors that often appeared in his dreams.

It was hard to believe that a mysterious robot was the clue that allowed them all to discover all of this but they uncovered a lot so that night when Dipper and Mabel had come home exhausted with an unconscious Pacifica and a troll that Uncle Stan had never seen before and even he raised an eyebrow at them; Dipper and Mabel had decided to tell their uncle about the journal.

Unfortunately their uncle hadn’t taken them all that seriously laughing slightly at the journal’s contents and stating that this must be where Dipper got all his conspiracy theories from before walking away flicking through the pages.

Mabel had reassured Dipper that he didn’t really need the journal but he still wanted it back.

He hadn’t actually had a chance to ask Uncle Stan for his journal back though since they had all been so busy with the fall out of everything that had happened. It was decided that John couldn’t really go back home to his ‘mom’ since it turned out she was evil that and she had kind of disappeared. Pacifica had told them that to avoid scrutiny from the society the Northwest’s had blamed the destruction of the aspects completely on John’s ‘mom’ before the lady even knew what happened. The ‘All Seeing Eye’ as they were apparently called seemed to believe that through some slip up of the scientist John had discovered the truth about being a creator and destroyed the aspects himself.

The only people in the society that seemed to know the actual truth of what happened were Pacifica and her father and Mr. Northwest didn’t seem to be in any hurry to admit that his daughter had gone against The All Seeing Eye though Pacifica was grounded but Mabel had been sneaking into the Northwest manor frequently to check on her.

Dipper still wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with those two.

But at the very least it was good to know that Pacifica was on their side and now they had something close to a man on the inside to work as a sort of double agent for them now.

Dipper was dragged away from his thoughts when Stan finally came through the door he didn’t waste any time running up to his Uncle “Uncle Stan! Do you have a moment? Because if you do I’ve been meaning to ask you for my journal back.” Dipper asked and his uncle began searching himself before pulling the old book from underneath a counter, seriously Uncle Stan!

“You mean this old thing! It was so boring I couldn't even finish it.” Stan told him handing him back the journal; Dipper took a moment to realize that he actually got it back he had thought it would have been a lot harder and taken a lot longer to do so.

“Wait, you're just gonna give it to me? Just like that?” Dipper asked in disbelief maybe because the journal was so precious to him he couldn’t imagine anyone else giving it up but he thought his Uncle would try and keep anything that put conspiracies in his head out of his hands.

“What else do you want? A kiss on the cheek?” Stan asked jokingly as Dipper continued to stare at the journal in his hands before he heard the sound of Mabel answering the door.

Were they here already?

“I... I gotta go!” Dipper said hurriedly but as he turned to leave he heard his uncle say ‘Dipper wait’ and felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning to look at Stan he noticed he actually had a serious expression on his face for once, which was enough to stop him in his tracks. 

Stan sighed tiredly before speaking “Dipper, don’t do anything to dangerous okay? I’m not sure what you and your sister think you’re up to or where you met a fuchsia-blooded troll of all things-“ Stan began to say and Dipper’s eyes widened in surprise and he instinctively took a step back away from Stan.

“Wait what? You know about Feferi?” Dipper found himself asking in disbelief and Stan gave him another tiered sigh.

“Dipper I’ve known as soon as I met her; it doesn’t help that her clothes have pieces of fuchsia colored cloth on them,” Stan said and Dipper felt himself groaning and muttering ‘Mabel’ he shouldn’t have let his sister design Feferi a new wardrobe.

Fuchsia bloods were supposed to be extinct and it would draw too much attention in one suddenly popped up so Dipper had suggested that Feferi hide her blood colour. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable or anything but Feferi said it was okay apparently she once had a friend who had to do something similar.

But Mabel said she didn’t want Feferi to feel like she had to hide herself and suggested that instead of hiding one part of herself she should embrace another part of herself and got to work redesigning Feferi’s wardrobe.

His sister seemed to be slightly disappointed when Feferi put away her tiara and jewelry but Feferi had insisted she wasn’t royalty anymore. Now Feferi’s style seemed to be a bit simplistic but still not hiding or rather hiding in plane sight. Her shoes were now black but she wore Fuchsia socks, she still had a swim suite with her sign on it but instead of a colorful skirt Mabel claimed Feferi had once had it was a black skirt of apparently a similar style with a fuchsia line at the hem.

Feferi hid her wings under her clothes and whenever they were out in public Feferi wore a sweater with the life aspect symbol on it. Despite the fuchsia coloured items anyone who didn’t know the truth just assumed Feferi was a violet blood which was reasonable enough to believe no one would expect that an extinct blood caste would suddenly show up. 

Well no one except for his uncle apparently.

Why didn’t you say you knew?” Dipper grumbled he wasn’t upset that his Uncle had figured them out, he was more upset that he hadn’t been able to tell that his Uncle knew. Dipper always kind of assumed that his family was an open book and he was the most mysterious one there.

“Because I know how to mind my own business something you should try sometime kid,” Uncle Stan suggested with a joking smile before looking serious again “Dipper look I’m not going to pretend I know what you’re up to but I do know this town is weird and that something is going on especially with John and Feferi” Dipper diverted his gaze; at the moment John and Feferi were living with Soos and his grandmother but Dipper himself was surprised that no one had talked much about John’s mother disappearing the most talk that was had was that John suddenly rejected the offer to move to the advanced classes. Mabel was happy about that but Dipper had kind of been looking forward to sharing a class with John.

The sound of his uncle talking dragged Dipper’s attention back towards his guardian “Kid, listen. This town is crazy. So you need to be careful. I don't know what I'd do with myself if you or your sister got hurt. I don’t think you should take that spooky journal seriously but I'll let you hold on to it, as long as you promise me you'll only use it for self-defense, and not go looking for trouble.” Stan told him and Dipper spent a few minutes studying the older man with his eyes.

“Okay, as long as you promise me that you don't have any other secrets you’re keeping from me like the fact that you knew about Feferi!” Dipper said and Stan just nodded and promised.

“Okay Promise,” Dipper said hoping that his uncle didn’t notice that he put his fingers behind his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was kind of a filler chapter but I'm really excited because if you look closely you will notice things being put into motion. Soos and his grandmother are now looking after John and Feferi and I'm going to try and build a kind of sibling relationship between our favorite wind boy and fish princess but I'm not sure how I'll do. If you want to know how Feferi's redesign looks please look here.
> 
> http://our-happygirl500-fan.tumblr.com/post/159358007973/out-of-pocket-my-old-class-swap-design
> 
> and here 
> 
> http://our-happygirl500-fan.tumblr.com/post/159357578863/out-of-pocket-its-not-really-a-bloodswap-more


	25. Chapter 25

“You can drop the act McGucket! We know you have something to do with the secret society that controls the town!” Dipper accused as they entered the junkyard to meet with Old man McGucket once again, only this time they weren’t looking for his help they were looking for answers.

McGucket had always seemed to refer to John as the ‘Heir’ and now that they knew that John was actually the Heir of Breath that means that McGucket must have known something about what was happening in town. So the same group that had talked to McGucket the first time minus Pacifica who was still grounded when to confront him, he’d greeted them thinking they were going to ask about the robot but they had much more pressing things to talk about.

“What society?” McGucket said in confusion before looking slightly downtrodden “I couldn’t possibly control anything let alone a town, I've never done nothin' worthwhile in my life. Everyone knows I'm no good to nobody. I can't remember what I used to be, but I must've been a big failure to end up like this.” McGucket looked away from them as they all looked at each other; sure they had been expecting McGucket to deny their accusations at first but this seemed weirdly sincere.

“But you knew about John being a creator,” Soos spoke up as John started to shuffle uncomfortably as he was mentioned. Dipper found himself frowning and when he looked at his sister he found that Mabel was doing the same; they knew that John was still uncomfortable about everything they found out and that was understandable John had just found out that everything he knew was basically a lie after all and while Dipper knew that Mabel had asked Feferi to watch out for John it was hard not to be worried about their friend.

Dipper shook his head to try and clear his thoughts before approaching McGucket again, the best way to help John was to uncover the mysteries of the town and stop the Society from messing with him again, “What about this book? Are you sure you don’t have anything to do with it? Here, look closely.” Dipper pressed as he flipped through the journal showing McGucket various pages because he was sure that this clue couldn’t stop here there was no way this could be a dead end. 

This wasn’t just about Dipper’s hunt for the truth anymore this was about his friends and even if John acted like he didn’t want to know the other boy needed to find out what was really going on more than any of them. Dipper was also concerned about Mabel and the fact that she was a ‘Sylph of Heart’ and Dipper dreams of the Horror Terrors calling him a ‘Mage of Mind’ were concerning in their own right.

McGucket kept on shaking his head as Dipper found himself desperately flipping through the pages because there had to be something, something here that would link to how McGucket knew John was a creator “I told you, I don’t recall-“ McGucket began until he caught sight of one page and began screaming in fear.

“They Eye! The Robes! The Men! My Mind! They did something!” 

McGucket rushed away from him trembling in a corner as Dipper hastily shut the journal “Who did?” Dipper asked as Feferi started to try and comfort the older man.

“I… oh I don’t recall.” McGucket informed them and inside Dipper’s mind things seemed to begin to fit into place what if…

“Oh you poor man! No wonder your mind’s all…” Mabel elaborated by blowing a raspberry, “You’ve been through something intense.” Mabel said sympathetically as she joined Feferi in comforting McGucket as Dipper found himself humming thoughtfully.

“Guys what if McGucket learned something he wasn't supposed to know, and someone, or something, messed with his mind? Like they did with John. We've got to get to the bottom of this.” Dipper said and the other’s found their eyes widening in realization before Dipper turned towards his twin, “Mabel, Feferi’s called you a Sylph of Heart can you do anything.” Dipper asked, as Mabel looked thoughtful; pink electricity sparked around her hands as her eyes began to glow slightly before it stopped and Mabel looked up again before shaking her head.

“There is something off about his soul like his sense of self has been messed with but the main problem seems to be his mind if we could do something about that then maybe I could help by talking it out with him over a period of time and stuff because talking out can always help” Mabel tried to explain, they’d been talking about Mabel’s ‘heart thingy’ for a while though they haven’t exactly found out the full capabilities of it.

“Mabel I’m starting to wonder if your superpowers are just therapy” John said raising an eyebrow which caused Mabel to snort in laughter and stick her tongue out at her friend. After some prodding they managed to find out that McGucket’s earliest memory was at the towns history museum so they all went with McGucket to see what they could find.

“Dipper, you look weirdly happy about breaking in,” John noted with a smirk as Dipper tried to fight the smile on his face. He couldn’t help it, this felt just like an action movie! He told John as much, which prompted some laughter and agreement from the other boy.

With a start John hurriedly shushed him as he noticed a cloaked figure heading down the hall; following them they found a secret passage that seemed to lead to a hidden area.

They all started investigating while trying not to be discovered Mabel hanging back slightly with Dipper excitedly talking to her. “Mabel isn’t this amazing? I can’t believe this was all right here in the town the whole time!” Dipper said trying to contain his excitement when he noticed that Mabel wasn’t paying attention.

Usually Mabel not paying attention wouldn’t be much of a problem, a lot of people did that but he noticed that Mabel had a troubled look on her face.

“Mabel what’s wrong?” Dipper asked in concern as his sister sighed taking out a blue marble that he recognized as the dream bubble of John’s other selves. They had considered using that to try and sort out some of John’s stolen memories but John had been against it saying he didn’t know if that was really him and none of them wanted to push John on anything.

“I don’t know, I want to help McGucket and everything and if we find a way to help him we can probably help John but if we do get John’s memories of being a god and everything back do you think he’ll still be our friend?” Mabel asked and Dipper’s eyes widened and he felt a small laugh that he couldn’t stop slip out.

“That’s it? Mabel of course John will still be our friend,” Dipper said because even he could tell how much John cared about all his friends and the idea of that ever changing just didn’t seem possible.

Feeling like he reassured his twin Dipper ran ahead to catch up to their friends.

\---

This place was super weird, that’s all John had to say on the matter. He was glad that Dipper seemed happy though; the other boy always seemed so excited whenever they found another clue it was enough to make John almost feel glad that all this stuff was happening.

The stuff about being a creator and all of that junk made him a bit uncomfortable to think about sure but at least Dipper and Mabel didn’t seem to treat him any differently and he was really glad about that, he wouldn’t know what to do if the Pines twins had treated them differently. It was nice to know that he was still well John to them and he was no matter what was revealed he was still himself!

Or at least he hoped he was…

That was partly the reason why he didn’t want to take that little dream bubble of another version of him that Mabel had and another reason why he was a bit nervous about being here. Would he still be him if he got his memories back? Usually John didn’t really like thinking about uncomfortable things and tried to ignore them but this kept popping up in his thoughts.

Also what if who he used to be wasn’t nice, Feferi had told him some stuff but she admitted that she didn’t really interact with him all that much back when they were playing ‘the game’. Some stuff made him feel more uncomfortable actually, while it was good to know that he hadn’t actually destroyed a world on purpose like Pacifica’s dad implied he still let it die which was kind of fucked up no matter how much Feferi reassured him that there was nothing anyone could do.

Feferi had also told him that he had a sister that was the only human she actually talked to. Apparently her name was Jade and John didn’t even know how to feel about that because wow a sister. What was she like? Was she okay? Was she worried about him?

He wondered if they had been like Mabel and Dipper, living with Feferi had given John some idea of what having a sibling was like but it was mostly bickering over sharing a room, complaining over Feferi spending too long in the bathroom and learning to hate nautical puns. 

John has made sure to ask Mabel to punch him in the face if she ever caught him ever making a fish pun because what else were friends for?

A major problem was that there was no real indication on whether or not the creator were good or evil, while the society seemed like evil bad guys in wouldn’t be that hard to believe a big plot twist where it’s revealed that the good guys were actually the bad guys and the bad guys were actually the good guys. 

John could name at least ten different movies where that happened.

Yeah Feferi had said that they were good guys but from what Feferi had told them she had been killed pretty early on so she didn’t really have much credibility on the creators morality and also the fact that they had just left the dream bubbles to collapse, that didn’t sound like the stuff good guys did.

If he had to admit it John wasn’t sure whether or not he’d still be himself if he got his memories back and that scared him a little bit.

“O-cray where did Mabel gou?” Feferi suddenly asked and they all looked around to find that Mabel had split off from the group and they began to look around themselves frantically.

“Where did she go?” Dipper asked worriedly and John was sure that the other boy would have called out for her despite the fact that they were trying to sneak around when Mabel suddenly appeared out the corner of him eye.

John tried not to act surprised despite the fact that he took an instinctual step back. Why was Mabel so good at sneaking around? She was like one of the loudest people he knew, though John guesses that just made his friends skill even more impressive.

“Mabel where did you go?” Dipper asked slightly concerned as Mabel looked away for a second and John noticed she was hiding something in the sleeve of her sweater. That caused him to raise an eyebrow but he decided not to call attention to it.

“Guys there is something that you have to see,” Mabel said making the gesture for ‘come here’ as she led them down a hallway leading to an area where at the arch edged in stone was written ‘The Hall of the Forgotten’ filled with tubes with various people’s names on it. There was also at the center something that looked like it held something important but it had been broken into. That was probably Mabel’s handiwork.

“Are these stolen memories?” Dipper asked in wonder when suddenly they noticed McGucket walking towards a big statue and was pointing at a tube labeled ‘McGucket Memories’. 

“Oh dude your memories we did it!” Soos said enthusiastically as Dipper began sorting through the tubes around the room.

“That must mean that John’s memories could be here somewhere,” Dipper said tossing a tube aside as Wendy knelt down next to Dipper and began to help him look. Mabel began to shuffle about uncomfortably and opened her mouth to say something when she was cut off by the sound of alarms.

They all began to look around to see what could have caused it spotting McGucket with the tube of his memories in his hand. “They always put alarms on important stuff!” Mabel screamed as they all began to make a run for it.

“Soos grab the viewing machine!” Dipper yelled and Soos grabbed the machine and they started to follow them only for them all to be cut off by guards. John summoned some wind enough to push them back but not enough to hurt them when suddenly the wall exploded.

Seriously! Were they using bombs against them? Again!?

John coughed away the smoke that smell like gunpowder and noticed Mabel helping McGucket up her eyes darting to a corner near a pillar where McGucket had dropped the tube containing his memories but closer to that was the blue marble dream bubble along with another tube labeled ‘The Heir’s Memories’.

“John your memories!” Dipper cried in realization, as the pillar started to crash down. He only had time to grab one so rushing forward using the wind to give him extra speed he grabbed the tube with McGucket’s memories and got out of the way of the pillar just in time to see it shattering his bubble and his tube John compulsively winced as it did.

Looking up John noticed the others were stating at him in shock, Mabel had her hands over her mouth covering a gasp, “John your memories…” Mabel’s barely inaudible whisper came out when suddenly shouts from the guards brought everyone’s attention back to the present situation.

“Forget about that go!” John yelled as they all made a run for it, frankly he had no idea how they all made it out of there.

When they were finally safely back at McGucket’s junkyard Mabel shuffled about nervously before suddenly blurting out an apology “John I’m so sorry, I used the bubble to find your memories and I should have just given them to you as soon as I found it an I’m really sorry-“ Mabel began apologizing until John raised a hand to stop her.

“Mabel it’s okay,” John reassured as he handed McGucket his tube McGucket looked at his tube and then back at John a confused expression on his face.

“You got my memories back for me instead of your own…why?” McGucket asked and John simply shrugged because honestly when he had seen those tubes there he hadn’t even thought about which one to grab it had just seemed like the right thing to do.

“You needed your memories more that I needed mine,” John told him with a shrug though honestly he was slightly relieved not to have to worry about possibly turning evil or something when regaining a god’s memory. John gave McGucket a reassuring smile before turning to Mabel “I’m not really sure who I used to be, and honestly I’m a little scared of finding out but even though I’ve lost some memories that doesn’t mean I can’t make new ones,” he said and Mabel ran up to him giving him a hug while Wendy ruffled his hair.

“Are you sure you’re okay John?” Dipper asked him with concern and John began to hum thoughtfully before looking up to see the Pines twins looking at him with a bit of worry.

John didn’t really know what he’s lost but right now he’s grateful that he has friends that care about him and that they were even willing to put themselves in danger just to help him. John had people that cared about him right here in the present no matter what had happened in the past.

“Yeah I’m positive,” John said reassuringly as Dipper gave him a slight nod before turning towards McGucket.

“All right, McGucket, are you ready to see your memories? Find out who you really are?” Dipper asked as the adult looked slightly uncertain which John probably understood more than anyone else there.

“I'm not so sure. What if I don't like what I see?” McGucket asked voicing some of John’s own fears as Mabel moved to comfort him. 

“We've come all this way. Go on.” Mabel encouraged as McGucket put the tube into the viewing machine and they watched a younger saner McGucket who had come to Gravity Falls along with a trusted friend to work for the Society to protect the world and uncover secrets about the ‘creators’ until discovering some terrible truth so horrible McGucket invented a way to utilize the Mind aspect to erase memories which would lead to an eventual decent into madness.

They all stood in silence once the screen finally showed nothing but static no one knowing what to say until Mabel finally spoke up “Oh, McGucket, I'm so sorry.” Mabel apologized, this had been exactly what John had been worried about with his own memories but for some reason McGucket reassured them that despite not being good memories he was glad that they had helped him like they had said they would and seemed to endeavor to fix his past mistakes.

After that things seemed to conclude and Mabel and McGucket began discussing when to organize sessions where Mabel offered to do what she could to ‘help McGucket put himself back together again’. However just before they were all about to head home McGucket called out to John and the twins.

“McGucket what’s up?” Dipper asked as the three of them made their way back to the adult who had a concerned look on his face.

“I remembered something important about you two,” McGucket said pointing at the twins and John could practically feel the concern coming off of Dipper, however the other boy let McGucket continue.

“I’m not sure about the details but even with how I was I could always recognize that John was special but you two are special in an entirely different way”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since I started writing Feferi I've been learning more about fish for the specific reason on fish puns did you know a freshwater drum is called a gou? 
> 
> Join us next time as Dipper gets a weapons upgrade.


	26. Chapter 26

“Couldn’t sleep?” A familiar and friendly voice called out to him. John turned around to see Mabel coming through the roofs entrance and moving to sit next to him where he’d been looking at the stars. “I thought you and Dipper were watching that nerdy ghost show the two of you like,” Mabel noted once she had gotten comfortable next to him and John found himself sighing at the thought of Dipper.

With all the craziness that had happened lately Mabel had recommended a sleep over and Soos had asked permission from his abuelita so Soos, John and Feferi were all spending the night at the Mystery Shack like always seemed to happen during sleep overs John went off with Dipper and Soos joined them in their Ghost Harassers marathon though the handy man did fall asleep pretty quickly.

“One that show is awesome and two we were watching it but Dipper couldn’t get what McGucket said out of his head so he went to sleep hoping he might talk to the Horror Terrors and see if they can answer some of the millions of questions that he has,” John explained and Mabel let out a groan that John couldn’t help empathies with neither of them liked how reliant and trusting Dipper had gotten towards the Horror Terrors no matter how much Feferi had tried to reassure them both. True neither John or Mabel had actually seen the Horror Terrors but even Mabel thought they sounded creepy and John couldn’t help get an uneasy feeling at the thought of Dipper getting to close to them.

John trusted Dipper of course, maybe more than anyone except for probably Mabel but John couldn’t help but have this nagging feeling in the back of his head that if Dipper was allowed to become too reliant on the Horror Terrors he was in danger of going completely off the deep end and John didn’t want anything like that to happen to Dipper.

“Where’s Feferi?” John asked hoping to get both his and Mabel’s minds off the Horror Terror’s because thinking about them didn’t really help anything until they came up with a way to free Dipper from the clutches of his dark masters.

Mabel probably got what he was trying to do because she perked up almost immediately, that or she just liked talking about Feferi. It was probably a bit of both considering he knew that stuff was happening with Pacifica which made things complicated.

Gods why did everyone have to always be wrapped up in relationship drama? Why couldn’t they just be kids?

Sure he knew that technically they weren’t kids him being an ancient god and all and Feferi existing as a ghost for a long time though the fact that Feferi had been a ghost at one point was seriously cool in his opinion. He wasn’t sure if Dipper and Mabel could be classified as normal kids after all Mabel technically died and come back to life with super powers though John didn’t like to think about that because the fact that Mabel had died at all made him feel guilty. But even with all that junk they should still just try to be kids!

Shouldn’t they.

“She’s enjoying herself in a bathtub fall of sault water,” Mabel explained and John nodded with understanding because he’d seen her do something similar back at the Ramirez’s place it sounded like a bath but he didn’t know if it could be called that when Feferi kept her clothes on though he guesses half of her clothes was a swim suite.

“I think she misses the ocean…” Mabel commented quietly after a moment of quiet.

“You’re probably right she’s lost a lot.” John agreed because Feferi had lost a lot: her friends had left her for dead without ever trying to help her which made him feel slightly angry to think about now he had gotten to know Feferi, she’d lost her home, her lusus, her status and even her place in the universe but she still put on a happy front which John couldn’t help but to relate to. 

Dealing with the bad stuff was hard and it just felt easier to ignore it but Mabel had been talking to him about dealing with his emotions, a bit hypocritical of her but John kind of needed it he guesses.

“Yeah…” Mabel agreed with him before slightly trailing off, he could tell there was something weighing on her mind so they sat there in silence while John waited until Mabel was ready to say whatever it was that she wanted to say until finally she opened her mouth.

“John how many romantic partners can someone have before it makes them a bad person?” Mabel asked and John stopped and blinked, as he comprehended her question.

Of course in was romantic drama when was it not?

John just shrugged though because he cared about Mabel too much to be an asshole about this, she was lucky she was his best friend because otherwise she’d be getting the biggest groan imaginable right now.

“I’m not really interested in romance junk Mabel but are we talking human dating or troll dating?” John asked and Mabel perked up as if she hadn’t thought about that particular detail and spent a few seconds thinking it over.

“Both I guess,” Mabel said before taking a deep breath and continuing “So say there was this person who liked romance and lets say they after a couple of failures found this amazing and wonderful person but then this other amazing and beautiful person that they have this whole history with and might have actually liked for a really, really long time shows that they have feelings for them what do they do?” Mabel rambled and John would have made a motion to speak if Mabel hadn’t continued on without skipping a beat.

“They can’t just dump the one they have chemistry with for the one they have history with you know? The first ones lost so much but their both hurting and yeah I guess the problem would be solved if there were like quadrants involved the first happy and new one red and the second complicated one black they did kinda have a rivalry with them after all. But their feelings about the second one feel so much more complicated than just one quadrant because yes there are black feelings there but also red and maybe a little pale and-“ Mabel paused when John finally decided to slow her down by moving the wind to blow her hair in her face.

After moving the hair out of the way Mabel noticed John had raised a hand signaling for her to stop and she gave him and annoyed but friendly shove before he continued.

“You don’t have to choose a quadrant, you don’t have to choose between troll dating and human dating heck you can even do both. If the feelings you have for Feferi and Pacifica are really that strong then I’m sure it will work out some how who knows maybe they’ll both be fine with you having a bunch of different girlfriends?” John joked and Mabel shoved him again but she had a glint in her eye as if a plan was beginning to form.

Of gods please tell him he hadn’t just given Mabel the idea to have a bunch of different girlfriends and if he had please let her stop at two.

John sighed before continuing “Mabel we’re still kind of just kids so we shouldn’t have to think about all this romance junk and you’re going to have plenty of time to think about it later Pacifica has ended up being one of my best friends and Feferi after living with her and everything is kind of like a sister so I don’t want either of them to get hurt so why can’t we just enjoy the time we have now?” John asked as Mabel nodded.

“Enjoying the time we have now I like that, also I didn’t say it was about me, Pacifica and Feferi,” Mabel told him as he rolled his eyes.

“Yes of course as if it wasn’t obvious,” he joked as Mabel shoved him again, “Hey how many times are you going to shove me?” He asked but Mabel simply stuck her tongue out at him as her answer.

John smiled to himself as Mabel seemed to cheer up, this might have been on her mind for a while he hoped he was at least able to help Mabel with some of her romance drama even if he didn’t really get it John wasn’t sure if he had met anyone he could ever have romantic feeling for. He turned to look up at the stars and for a second he felt that he almost could see the constellation that was Dipper’s namesake; the thought of his friend caused him to smile.

It would have to be someone pretty impressive for John to ever even think of getting involved in romance at this point in his life.

“Guys I need to show you something!” a familiar voice called out behind him and John turned to see standing on the roof behind him and Mabel was Dipper Pines.

\---

“Okay run this by me one more time,” Dipper asked her as she watched her brother rub the sleep away from his eyes.

Last night Dipper had gone to talk with the Horror Terror’s and they had given him a ‘gift’ to deal with dangers soon to come. Don’t ask her how they managed to bring something from dreamland to the real world but Dipper had woken up with a pair of knitting needles.

Dipper called them the ‘Thorns of Oglogoth’, which had to be the nerdiest Mabel had ever heard but she already knew that Dipper was a dork. Personally Mabel felt slightly uncomfortable about the needles and thought that any sane adventurer would throw those things away but Dipper seemed pretty stubborn about keeping them. At least maybe now Mabel had an excuse to teach Dipper how to knit now.

John went to stand behind her and began explaining their plan since she had shown him what she had found earlier, they’d both been waiting for an opportunity to use those things for ages “Well we need to test those weird needles you got right? But obviously people are going to be suspicious if we end up blowing things up so Mabel and I have come up with a distraction,” John explained as she proudly opened the closest door for dramatic effect.

Inside was a box labeled ‘DO NOT TOUCH’ but they were going to take that as just general advice than actual instructions because inside that box was a bunch of different kinds of fireworks.

Mabel couldn’t help but still feel proud about the discovery and her smile grows even wider when she hears her twin whisper ‘whoa’ in an amazed voice. Mabel starts to gesture in between her and her brother “Bro. Bro. We're both thinking it.” She said before they practically yelled “Crazy rooftop fireworks party!” in unison before Feferi was suddenly running down the hall way and trying to shush them uh oh, John had put Feferi on watch out duty in case Stan came to stop them.

It turns out she didn’t have to be worried though when her Uncle Stan did show up because he seemed to be just as excited about the idea of blowing stuff up with fireworks as the twins. As Stan was setting things up with the help of Feferi she and John noticed Dipper sneaking off.

The two of them followed Dipper to the room she shared with her brother to find him rummaging through his piles of notebooks “Uh Dipper I thought you wanted to blow stuff up with fireworks and magic needle wands?” John suddenly asked speaking up causing Dipper to turn his attention to the two of them; he almost looked surprised as if he had just noticed them.  
“The needles aren’t really my thing but I have an idea to make them more my style,” Dipper says holding up a blue notebook that Mabel got him a little bit ago. It hadn’t been used yet because if it had there would be evidence of ripped out pages and ink splatter from Dipper’s chewed pens. Mabel took a few moments to wonder what Dipper meant when suddenly he stabbed the needles into the notebook.

Black energy started seeping out of the needle like trickling oil dying the book pitch black which was slightly concerning to say the least until a pair of ordinary needles clattered to the floor as Dipper proudly held up a dark black book with the insignia of a burning pine tree on it’s center which wasn’t alarming at all. Absolutely not nope, the spine was stripped black and dark blue and the pages looked grey.

She and John exchanged a nervous glance with each other as Dipper spoke “ladies and gentlemen I give you the Tome of Oglogoth” Dipper said the book seeming to open by itself turning it’s own pages before landing on one and they watched as the blank pages started filling themselves out in jet liquorish black ink in strange runes.

“Can you read those?” John asked hesitantly as Dipper looked up and gave him a confident smirk that almost looked out of character for her brother. Gods please tell her that dark magic wasn’t going to mess with his head or anything.

“Thanks to the Horror Terrors yes,” Dipper confirmed before he started walking out of the room 

“Now lets go blow stuff up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is the dark magic going to mess with Dipper's head? Who knows but please enjoy the first half of this chapter being John<> Mabel. Sorry this chapter missed it's weekly update mark by a day and that Mabel's side is super short this week but I've got exams for the next couple of weeks so if I can get anything out until everything is over that will be a miracle but if I can't I'm sorry.


	27. Chapter 27

Mabel had been having fun blowing stuff up with her girlfriend and her three favorite boys in the world one second she was watching Dipper blow stuff up with magic spells from his creepy magic book and the next second she was blowing up stuff herself like a god of destruction with her fireworks. It was great and afterwards they got to clean it up with water balloons!

The four kids had started a water balloon fight and Mabel and Feferi’s team were totally destroying John and Dipper’s team, John might have put up a better fight if he hadn’t kept on trying to keep himself from laughing every time Dipper failed at throwing a water balloon.

Everything had been going great! Even though Feferi had to leave early because she promised Soos’s Grandmother that she would help the older women’s friend look for a lost bracelet at the bottom of their pool before lunch and Feferi did have gills. Mabel had wanted Feferi to stay but promises were promises unless you crossed your fingers and Feferi didn’t cross her fingers so Mabel say Feferi off with a hug and a promise that she’s beat the boys in the water balloon battle and John had given the troll a wave goodbye and a promise to see her at home.

It had made Mabel really happy to remember that John and Feferi were in a good place with now that John’s mom wasn’t being awful to him and Feferi wasn’t in danger of being sucked into a black whole. It made her happy to see her friends happy.

With fire works, water balloons, a general reminder that people important to her were happy and even popsicles made this a pretty great day! Until Mabel got a panicked and cryptic message from Pacifica that ‘a move is going to be made soon’ when Stan went to get a refill on his drink and then not even five minutes later these agent guys show up and ruin every thing!

They said that they were ‘law enforcement’ but they weren’t the cops. If it had been Sheriff Blubs or Deputy Durland Mabel could have handled it easily, especially since she and John had gotten used to handling them in their super hero persona’s but these people were so obviously part of the super secret evil organization that she was honestly surprised that they weren’t blasting them with magic super powers first chance that they got but things were complicated.

They had arrested her Uncle. They said that Uncle Stan had stolen Nuclear junk from them which was ridiculous because what would an owner of a tourist trap want with that? Stan may take the occasional tangerine from the store sure but it wasn’t like he was some kind of super villain. However ridiculous the charge though the twins Uncle was being taken to a real police station, Dipper had muttered that it probably had something to do with trying to make sure that they didn’t make a fuss while they were taking them wherever they were taking them, John was looking like he was feeling guilty which was making Mabel frown even more with everything going on.

This wasn’t his fault this was the bad guys fault! 

Mabel also found herself worried about Pacifica; she hoped that trying to send a text to warn them didn’t put the other girl in danger. If there were any good news in all of this it would have to be that Feferi was probably safe at least.

Mabel glared at the other issue that had suddenly arisen that stopped them from fighting the bad guys as soon as they showed up which took the form of one of Dipper’s classmates. She was cute and all, Mabel thinks her name was Lily? It had been such a surprise to see another kid in the car that they were pushed in the three of them found themselves unable to do anything.

“So I’m guessing that your like a spy for these guys spread throughout the town,” Dipper said glaring at her his voice sounding untrusting and bitter. Mabel narrowed her eyes at the other girl but couldn’t help but feel a little worried for her twin; Dipper better not take this ‘trust no one thing’ *too* far.

“You’d be surprised how many of us there are actually,” the girl said straightening her glasses before acknowledging John and continuing “you know we’ve actually met before, though you don’t remember it” she said to John and John looked like he was on guard almost immediately. 

“You mean when you guys did whatever it was that you did to me!” John accused and the girl gave a slight smile it was almost sad in a way.

“I’d like to think of it more as giving you a chance for redemption,” the girl replied when Dipper suddenly and angrily spoke up though his question seemed to get little acknowledgement in favor for John’s more softly spoken question asked in a way that Mabel was sure he didn’t really want an answer to. 

“Redemption? By trying to turn him into a weapon to use!?”

“… Redemption for what?”

There was a slight moment of silence as a multitude of emotions passed over the other girl’s face Mabel being able to pick out sadness and anger before Lily answered. 

“I’m not sure if the Pines twins really remember it since it was a couple of years ago now and I was immediately put into the advanced classes but I wasn’t born in Gravity Falls; I’ve been out their I’ve seen the type of impact that the creators have had on the world. My mother works for the Society they saved our family or well what was left of it” Lily gave a bitter laugh.

“My father was a politician in the human kingdom you know? And a good one, some one that people could trust! He worked hard because he wanted to help people but that didn’t really do him any good once the creators came!” Lily began t o have a crazed look in her eye as she looked at John.

“The Maid set up Crocker corp and so many of my dad’s investors lost their businesses because no one wanted to do business with someone who wasn’t a god and if ruining all those lives weren’t enough when Crocker became Mayor despite having no information about our worlds politics, economy or history my dad killed himself because his political career was ruined by a god that thought it would be fun to play mayor!” Lily said looking hysteric “there are stories like that throughout the world of the gods misdeeds as they use our world as a plaything! But you three have a chance to save us, after the unfortunate incident with the women that was selected to pose as John’s mother we decided it was time to collect our assets!”

“Wait the three of us?” Dipper wondered allowed, as Lily seemed to begin to collect herself.

“As for using John as a weapon, well he was always a weapon. Unlike the other creators he didn’t really do anything to our world and the creators didn’t really do anything with him other than push him to the side since they had no use for him at the moment because John was just a tool for them to use to get their happy ending they didn’t care about him as a person. So wouldn’t it be better for him to be a weapon to protect the world he created rather than a weapon to enslave it?” Lily asked, leaving the group in a stunned silence and John looked incredibly shaken from the exposition.

Mabel decided to answer Lily’s question with a punch to the face.

\---

“Now there has to be a reasonable explanation for this,” Dipper heard his twin say as they watched the store footage panic and disbelief in her voice and even though it was playing right in front of his eyes Dipper had no idea what to think.

Earlier one thought seemed to play over and over in his mind when the agents suddenly showed up and arrested his Uncle under what he had originally assumed were phony charges.

This was it.

This was it; Dipper kept on thinking this was it. The people they had been fighting against all this time had finally made a move against them. They were taking them all into custody and using Stan’s arrest as an excuse. That’s why as they escaped the best plan they could come up to stop these guys was to first clear Stan’s name. Dipper could feel John blaming himself for the mans arrest since it he was clearly framed to get at the twins friend but it also seemed as if these guys wanted the Pines twins as well which was disturbing to say the least though Dipper couldn’t say why they wanted them.

John seemed even more shaken after everything that Lily had revealed about the creators and for some reason Dipper found himself bothered by the idea of John going through something negative. After all John was great and his friend and Dipper knew John had trouble actually dealing with negative stuff and Dipper didn’t want John to get messed up by trying to repress stuff so maybe that’s why he tried to comfort his friend and tell him that the stuff Lily said about the creators might not be true and even if it was John was with them now, he was their friend.

Dipper liked to think that he had helped a little bit and John even asked if Dipper himself was okay because he was worried the accusations that the Agents had yelled about Stan got to him but Dipper had brushed the other boy off despite there being a bit of doubt in the back of his mind. 

He could trust his Uncle right?

Dipper felt like a fool now because not only had Stan actually committed the crime but they’d found a bunch of stuff that they couldn’t explain like fake ID’s and a news paper article about Stan Pines being dead!

If Stan Pines was dead then who has raised him and his sister this whole time.

“There has to be some explanation. Maybe we're getting Ker-Prank'd! Justin Kerprank is gonna jump up from behind one of these plants” Mabel said in a panicked voice as she turned to look at potted plant “any minute now!” She told the two boys and after a brief pause she scoots forward and looks into the potted plant “...Any minute, Justin.” Dipper turned away feeling angry at all of this and for a second it almost felt like the horrrorterrors where whispering in his ears.

“I can't believe it. My whole life I've been looking for answers and the biggest mystery was right under our nose!” Dipper found himself yelling angrily as he paced back and forth

“What if this is like John, what if he works for them and our memories are fake?” Dipper muttered immediately getting the attention of the other two people in the room both looking shocked and Mabel was shaking her head as she ran over to him.

“No! Don’t say that! Our memories are real! And Stan isn’t awful like John’s mom!” Mabel yelled at him voice cracking slightly as she seemed to catch herself and turned towards John. 

“No offense,”

“None taken,”

John had shrugged when Mabel acknowledged him but it seemed like he looked as lost as the twins like he has no idea what it was that he should do in this situation but it seemed as though he was doing his best to calm Dipper down.

“Dipper… I don’t think this is like what happened with me, I had only just come to this town but you guys have a bunch of people who can tell you that your memories are real.” John tried to reassure him and part of Dipper knew this and was even grateful for it but another part of him that was reeling in shock and betrayal and disbelief and was screaming at him TRUST NO ONE! Caused him to brush the other boys hand off as John put his hand on his shoulder.

“Do we!?” For all we know they could all be in on it as well! This entire town could be lying to us!” Dipper accused feeling panic rise up in him because there really was no one he could trust and he could feel himself hyperventilating when suddenly John jerks him out of his thoughts by shaking him and when he finally stops the two boys make eye contact.

“Dipper… look at me… look at me and just breath okay?” John suggested and Dipper found himself obeying the other boy’s suggestion as he tried to calm himself down and found that it was actually working as he grounded himself in his friend’s sky blue eyes and felt his breathing become more even as John began to reason with him.

“Look, I can’t explain what’s happening. I can’t explain the footage or the fake ID’s or that newspaper article but I know that we can trust our friends. Pacifica is on our side we had this whole thing about it remember? And Candy and Grenda their Mabel’s people and speaking as one of Mabel’s people myself it’s a pretty trustworthy group. I know you say trust no one but that’s not a very healthy mind-set to have,” 

“Neither is repressing everything” Dipper found himself countering and John gave a slight laugh before admitting that Dipper had a point and continuing.

“Look you trust Wendy right? You trust Soos, everyone at the Mystery Shack is practically family you can’t honestly feel as though that could have all been fake.” John told him and Dipper had to permit that John did have a point because despite how angry he was the memories he made with everyone were probably real but that just meant that Stan had been lying to him and Mabel about something for their whole lives and Dipper wasn’t sure if that was actually worse.

“How… How do I know for certain that I can trust anyone?” Dipper found the question slipping out of his mouth while John simply shrugged at him.

“If you could know 100% for certain then it wouldn’t really be trust would it?” John countered and Mabel cheered on with a ‘yeah!’ before Dipper broke eye contact with John and coughed awkwardly once the other boy had let go of him.

“We still have to figure out what the deal with Stan is,” Dipper muttered and Mabel seemed to spring in to action at that as she began to dig through clippings.

“Ugh, there's gotta be some kind of explanation in here somewhere. What the...” Mabel paused taking out a loose piece of paper, which looked different from the others "secret code to hideout?" Mabel read out loud grabbing the boys attention as they ran to her side.

“Let me see that,” Dipper told his sister, as he took out the journal and a portable backlight only to feel disappointed in himself as he was unable to recognise the code. "A1, B, C3" Dipper read out feeling frustrated with himself as he tried to mentally go through every kind of code he knew but none seemed to fit “... I've never seen a code like this.” Dipper admitted before he heard John gasp in excitement next to him.

“Wait! I have! Guys, it's the vending machine!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! It's been a while but I've finished my exams and dealt with writers block. I'm going to try and get back in to writing for my other fics as well there's one chapter for one fic that I've been trying to get done since February. Any way in this chapter we see the Pines twins being worried about John because someone has to be and John trusting his friends. Also a little bit on how fucked up Earth C would actually be with the effects of super powered teenagers claiming to be Gods suddenly appearing and taking over which is why the society even exists in the first place


	28. Chapter 28

He wasn’t exactly sure what they were going to find there but Dipper felt as though they needed to get to the vending machine as soon as possible to as they got closer to the gift shop that Dipper heard a familiar and friendly voice speaking to some one.

“Alright Feferi, here’s the plan. Protect the machine, earn Stan's trust, I legally get adopted by Stan, change name to Stan Junior.” Soos listed off as the troll nodded along with an expression of determination and encouragement. To say that Dipper was surprised to see the two of them there would have been a slight understatement. Things had gotten crazy almost without warning and he wasn’t sure what to believe anymore.

They were in a tense and threatening situation and honestly Soos and Feferi were the least tense and threatening people he knew so they kind of seemed out of place. Sure he knew that Soos and Feferi could be dangerous in terms of if they got in a fight but as people they were just too nice.

Both Dipper and John expressed surprise practically at the unexpected two as soon as they came into view; Dipper more the man that was practically a member of his family and John more his slightly adoptive troll sister.

“Soos?” 

“Feferi!?”

Dipper might have guessed that John was probably panicking slightly on the inside in that Dipper felt his own voice was simply mere surprise while John’s sounded more like shock, the two that were addressed stopped their conversation to acknowledge them and Dipper felt that Soos and Feferi were almost more surprised to see the three of them rather than the other way round.

Mabel wasted almost no time running towards Feferi to give the other girl a relieved hug and Dipper felt himself torn between wanting to give a small smile at the fact that his sister was still worried about others despite all the stuff they were currently dealing with and wanting to roll his eyes that despite the danger Mabel was paying attention to her latest crush.

“Feferi I was so worried about you!” Mabel exclaimed as she hugged the other girl and Feferi looked surprised for a split second before immediately returning the hug and reassuring Mabel that she was fine.

John also looked as though he wanted to check on Feferi but hung back smiling fondly at the scene between the two girls waiting for the hug to end before he approached the troll.

“Hey, kids! Where've you been?” Soos asked as Dipper tried to make sense of the most recent turn of events. To be honest this had been a really long day.

“We heard that Stan had been arrested! What happened?” Feferi spoke up dragging her attention away from Mabel for a second; there was worry clear on her face.

Instead of answering their questions Dipper decided to ask his own.

“What are you guys doing here?” Dipper asked and at least this question was one he’d probably get an answer to. He already had hundred’s of questions swirling around in his mind that he thought his head might burst soon and honestly he didn’t know if he could handle any more.

Feferi and Soos looked at each other for a short moment before Feferi spoke up.

“Stan gave us a mission to protect this machine!” Feferi answered in conviction.

“Ha! And I thought I loved snacks!” Soos added in jokingly, briefly Dipper wondered if Soos could sense the tension that Dipper felt hanging over him. If he was then while Dipper appreciated the effort he didn’t think it would work.

Dipper took a breath to calm himself slightly as he wondered how he was going to get to the machine, if Stan had sent Soos to protect the machine then his Uncle if Stan even was his Uncle clearly had something to hide and that machine was the key to finding out what. Dipper remembered the stuff that John had said about trust and decided that maybe being honest about what he needed to do was the best way to go.

However it was John that actually spoke up for him first and Dipper despite the situation felt a small smile trying to creep onto his lips.

“Guy’s I know this sounds weird but the ones that arrested Stan were from that creepy organisation that sent the monsters to the town and we think that machine might have a clue about everything that’s happened so we really need to see it.” John explained and Feferi straightened up in attention.

“Reel-ly are you shore?” Feferi asked and that’s right Feferi supposedly did come from a similar game that John and the other creators were suppose to come from. Things with the society also affected her in a way as well. Dipper felt himself grimly nodding with Mabel and John.

“Yeah, just let us through so we can prove this is all just a big misunderstanding.” Mabel said, Dipper felt as though his sister was trying to sound dismissive but he could practically hear the worry working its way into her voice. In a way both twins were desperate to find answers right now but for different reasons.

“Feferi, listen. Something huge is going on here. If Stan is hiding some dangerous secret, we need to find out what it is! I need you to step aside.” Dipper said looking her in the eye and saw her eyes dart in the direction of Mabel and John for a slight second before bringing her attention back to him and nodding.

Feferi began move away when suddenly Soos put his hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“Guys, I know this seems crazy, but I promised Stan I would guard this with my life.” Soos explained and Dipper was reminded of just how loyal Soos could be, usually it was one of the best things about him but right now it was getting in there way.

John and Mabel glanced at him as Dipper gave them a slight nod in return and they seemed to understand what they needed to do without even having to be told.

To call it a struggle would be an over statement; Soos clearly didn’t want to fight them and as soon as Mabel blew attack in Soos’s eye she and John had Soos’s hands full with them trying to get past him which let Dipper easily make his way to the vending machine.

Feferi luckily stepped out of his way without any trouble as he input the numbers.

\---

John wasn’t really sure what to expect exactly once they had made their way to the vending machine, it wasn’t having the thing open up into a secret passage exactly but to be honest at this point it wasn’t really a surprise.

None of them really seemed to know how to react at first but eventually they all seemed to reach the obvious conclusion that they had to go down the mysterious passageway.

“It’s kind of like something from a game…” John found himself blurting out breaking the heavy silence that he didn’t realize had fallen over the group. His eyes widened slightly in shock at what he just said because where the hell had that come from?

Well he had a slight idea where that particular thought had come from but he didn’t really want to think about that. Ugh he doesn’t even want to think about the conversation he should probably have with Feferi about all that junk that Lily girl said. He knew he probably should think about ‘the creators’ especially if he was one of them but he didn’t really know if he was ready for that yet.

“…Or a dream…” Mabel suddenly added on to John’s previous statement in wonder breaking John’s train of thought. John smirked slightly at the girl both with fondness and gratitude. He really didn’t need to think about all the creator junk and he’d rather be reminded that Mabel was an awesome person.

The fact that she could interrupt his train of thought when he was heading to a bad place without even realizing it was exactly the reason they were best friends!

“…Or a nightmare,” Dipper muttered bitterly and the silence settled over the group once more. John found himself frowning as he walked along, he really was getting worried about Dipper and all this stuff happening clearly wasn’t helping the other boy.

That got more apparent when they saw the other journals and Dipper got more and more hysteric and angry but still had a determined look in his eye when he read the warnings and Soos started screaming about a ‘final countdown’, which John found kind of funny for some reason.

There were four keys that needed to be turned so John, Feferi and the twins all made sure to turn them together as a large device appeared at the center of the room revealing a large red button.

“ That's it! The shutdown switch!” Dipper yelled running towards it. “This all stops... now!” Dipper cried about to bring his hand down on the switch when a desperate voice cried out grabbing everyone’s attention and making them all freeze.

“DON'T TOUCH THAT BUTTON!”

Standing in the doorway, panting as though he had just run there and maybe he had if he escaped the creepy society that arrested him was Stan Pines.

They all acknowledged Stan in different ways: Soos looked determined despite being shocked and confused moments before, Feferi looked shocked she clearly hadn’t expected Stan to show up at such a crucial moment or maybe she just didn’t know what to think about the adult being there, Dipper looked angry which was hardly surprising since he’d been dripping with anger as soon as an enemy behind his mysteries appeared. It was one of the reasons John and Mabel had been starting to really worry about him.

And Mabel, she just seemed lost. Through out everything that happened today Mabel had been trying to come up with some kind of reasonable explanation for everything that was making them doubt Stan because he was her family and she loved him but with everything that was happening it was as if they couldn’t trust Stan and not being able to trust the people she loved might be the worse thing for Mabel.

John wasn’t sure what his own expression looked like right now, he probably looked determined like Soos maybe. That was what was expected right? John was angry sure but more about the fact that Dipper and Mabel had been hurt by everything that happened today and John couldn’t do anything to protect them despite all this being kind of his fault.

But at the same time John felt curious, something told him that Stan *must* have some kind of explanation whether or not it was a good one was yet to be seen though. So while John felt angry enough to frown he also had an eyebrow raised waiting to see Stan’s next move as well as almost daring the adult to do something.

John saw Stan’s eyes dart over between Dipper and the button and began to approach slowly as if Dipper was some sort of easily frightened animal.

“Dipper, just back away.” Stan began as Dipper's hand remained suspended inches over the button. “Please don't press that shutdown button, you gotta trust me.” Stan practically begged but Dipper didn’t seem to notice his Uncle’s desperate tone because as soon as Stan mentioned trust something in the other boy seemed to snap.

“And I should trust you *why*?! After you stole radioactive waste? After you lied to us my entire life?! I don't even know who you are!” Dipper screamed and John found himself wincing at the last accusation that sounded close to breaking into a sob.

“Look, I know this all seems nuts, but I need that machine to stay on! If you'd just let me explain—“ Stan began before being interrupted by his wrist watch beeping followed by the ground shaking as if it singled it.” Uh-oh, oh, no! Brace yourselves!” Stan warned before they were all suddenly lifted off the ground and all seemed to head in different directions.

John felt the air get knocked out of him as a piece of machinery crashed into him pinning him to the celling.

“John!” Feferi cried out in alarm as John struggled to turn his head to spot her, she was near the ground holding onto one part of her trident, which had been stabbed into the ground to keep her from flying away her wings from her revival unfurled. She had a panicked and terrified look in her eyes and the thought that this might remind her of the black hole and collapsing dream bubbles popped into his head.

He knew she still had nightmares about it.

“Feferi it’s going to be alright!-“ John tried to call out to her to reassure her when Mabel’s cry suddenly caught his attention and he noticed her ankle hooked onto a wire over the stand the button is on.

“Mabel! Hurry! Shut it down!” Dipper shouted as she began to crawl along the wire towards the button. Stan started making his way towards her before being stopped by Dipper and Soos, there was a brief struggle before Mabel started crying causing every one in the room to freeze and John could have sworn in that second that his heart might have stopped.

“Uncle Stan,” Mabel said through her tears “I don't even know, if you're my Uncle! I wanna believe you, but—“ and John almost felt like crying himself when Mabel stopped as if the words were too hard for her to get out.

“Then listen to me. Remember this morning when I said I wanted to tell you guys something?” Stan began to say when the sound of an electronic voice broke into the conversation.

“T-minus twenty seconds.” 

The portal flashed and there were screams though John honestly couldn’t tell whose at that moment as Feferi lost her grip on her trident and was thrown towards the wall along with Stan, Soos and Dipper. Seeing that Mabel made a motion to press the button only to freeze once again when Stan called out to her.

“I wanted to say that you're gonna hear some bad things about me, and some of them are true, but trust me. Everything I've worked for, everything I care about, it's all for this family!” Stan said and John found himself pausing along with Mabel because none of that sounded like a lie. If there was one thing that John knew about Stan Pines if anything had been true was that he did care about the twins.

“Mabel, what if he's lying? This thing could destroy the universe! Listen to your head!” Dipper shouted and at that point it became apparent to anyone with a brain that Dipper was at the point where he wasn’t going to listen to anyone or anything at the moment.

Mabel seemed frozen for a few seconds before suddenly looking up at John, their eyes meeting “…John what should I do?” Mabel asked looking lost and at that moment he felt as lost as Mabel looked.

He didn’t understand any of this but he felt like he was his entire fault. He was one of the ‘Creators’ that messed up the world enough for regular people that there was a secret society to stop them, he was the reason the society sent monsters to attack the town, he was the reason the society decided to make their move which led to all this happening.

It was all his fault and it was pushing his best friend to making the hardest decision of her life and he had no idea what to tell her, what could he even tell her.

“I- I don’t know…” John admitted and he wondered if Mabel could hear him because it felt like he could barley even speak but summoning up every once of strength he yelled out “do what you think is right Mabel I’ll be right behind you know matter what!” he yelled because that’s all he could really offer.

He still felt like a coward though and tried to ignore the bad taste in his mouth.

“Look into my eyes, Mabel! You really think I'm a bad guy?” Stan pleaded desperately trying to get Mabel to listen to him.

“He’s lying! Shut it down NOW!” Dipper commanded but it looked as though he was about to start crying as well.

“Mabel, please!” Stan begged one last time.

Mabel looked away and began lowering her hand to the button, but then paused and looked up at Stan. “Grunkle Stan...” Mabel said as she made eye contact with the man that raised her.

“Six.”

“Five.”

John felt like he couldn’t breath as Mabel lifted her hands and let go of the stand allowing herself to float upwards, arms raised as if surrendering herself to whatever the result of her decision would be.

“I trust you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there wasn't a chapter last week I have been crazy busy since my brother's graduation is soon. Any way this was an emotional chapter wow or maybe I just felt like that because I had 'Not what he seems" playing as I wrote it to try and get the right feel. Any way the intermission chapter is soon and I'm going to either need to smash everything that I wanted to happen before the third intermission into one chapter or push the intermission chapter back a bit, we'll see what happens.
> 
> But whatever the case I'm excited for the next chapter because... well lets just say John and Dipper are going to have someone else to watch ghost harassers with and it isn't Ford if that's what you're thinking.


	29. Chapter 29

“You guys okay?” John found himself asking immediately once the blinding flash of light went away and everything had come crashing down to earth. He found that he was quick to recover from surprising things since everyone else still seemed slightly disoriented.

John didn’t know whether his quick recovery to crazy stuff happening around him was an instinct from ‘his time as a god’ though why a Creator would be surrounded by crazy shit happening seemed a little unfair to him, or he was just weird.

He decided it was probably best not to think about it as he rushed to his friends sides and started helping Feferi up who looked a little shaken but otherwise seemed alright.

“I- I think so,” Dipper muttered picking himself up looking slightly troubled, John frowned as his friends troubled expression. This has kind of been a stressful day for Dipper what with discovering his Uncle wasn’t who he said he was (John knew that feeling) and Mabel deciding to trust said Uncle and risk destroying the universe.

The Universe hadn’t ended though so that was a plus, John still felt very much existy though honestly you could never really be sure but he was going to go out on a limb here and say that Mabel probably made the right choice.

A startled gasp from Dipper drew John’s attention back to his friend as the other boy began patting himself down looking for something “John have you seen my Journal…” Dipper began to ask when he suddenly trailed off his attention being caught by something.

Turning to look behind he John saw Dipper’s journal resting on the floor just in front of the portal that was now a mess of tangled wired and metal. Two figures had emerged from outside of the portal; one was a troll girl who was flying slightly wings unfurled behind her in an outfit that almost reminded him of pajamas that seemed kind of familiar. The other mysterious figure was a tall man in a dark, long coat.

As soon as the two figures stepped out of the portal Feferi had begun shaking slightly, her eyes widened in slight disbelief putting John on edge and he tried to position himself to protect his friend in case he needed to fight.

The man walked across the room to where the journals lay placing a six-fingered hand on top of the first journal before picking it up and placing it inside a pocket on the inside of his coat.

“What…? Who is that?” Dipper asked voicing the question that was probably on everyone’s minds. That was one of the things John liked about Dipper, a lot of people tend to be all mysterious and secretive all the time but Dipper always wanted answers to mysteries and actually asked what everyone was wondering instead of acting like he knew any way.

John had a feeling that Dipper’s attitude could be refreshing at times, to what he wasn’t actually sure but he knew that he was and that was enough.

Dipper’s question was obviously about the man but Feferi’s gaze seemed to be locked onto the troll behind the man.

“Aradia…” Feferi whimpered and if John hadn’t been right next to Feferi he probably wouldn’t have heard her. John couldn’t tell whether or not Feferi was happy or scared but if she new this troll that meant that she was part of the whole Creator thing.

Suddenly John found himself even less excited at the prospect of spending time with this girl if she was part of the whole ‘leaving Feferi for dead and abandoning her to be sucked up by a black whole’ group.

John was probably the only one who heard who heard Feferi however because everyone else’s attention was still directed at the unknown human man than the troll.

“The author of the journals…” Stan answered his voice a weird mix of finality and excitement as the man began to remove his goggles revealing a face that was eerily similar to Stan’s. “My brother,”

\---

Things had been… intense for the past couple of hours. Mabel would admit that; what with her uncle having a bunch of mysterious secrets and Dipper being close to flying off the handle and all.

Things had been a bit touch and go there for a bit when she had to decide on whether or not she should push a button or trust her uncle and risk possibly ending the universe or whatever.

But it had all worked out!

None of them were dead which was a plus and it turns out Stan did have a reason for everything! He had a secret brother! Which while surprising explains why all this crazy stuff was happening, after all if anything ever happened to Dipper or she lost him Mabel knew she wouldn’t let something as small as ‘risking the fate of the universe’ stop her from getting him back. So she was positive she made the right decision especially since Stan seemed so happy to see his brother.

The happy feeling she was getting from watching her Uncle was ruined when the secret brother punched him in the face though. And all of a sudden they were both arguing and their actions seemed to spring the mysterious troll that had come with her Uncle’s brother into action as she practically tackled Feferi.

“Hey there Feferi! What are you doing here? Wow you’re even alive how did you manage that?” The ram horned troll asked, her voice a mix of curiosity and excitement before suddenly noticing John “oh hi there John, is it just me or did you get smaller?”

John seemed to only let out a confused noise at the question and eyed Mabel as if looking for direction on what to do but to be honest even though she was the master of friendships; she was a bit lost with everything going on.

The mystery troll did look familiar though. She reminded Mabel of all the Aradia-bots that she had encountered in the dream bubbles. A Kanaya that she had met had once told her about a god tier friend called Aradia that would sometimes appear in bubbles and help out the ghosts.

So this was Aradia then…

On one hand Mabel was excited to finally meet alive Aradia, but on the other hand she worried a bit about Aradia causing Feferi to remember her Sollux issues but they were friends right? So it shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

Watching everything unfurl around her though Mabel decided that the best thing to do was voice a very important question so speaking up and introducing herself to the two newcomers Mabel said “Hey, hi. Mabel here. Quick question: WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?!”

Stan and his brother stopped their argument at the sound of her voice, the secret brother looking shocked at the sight of the others present in the secret basement lair lab.

“Ford look! It’s my friend Feferi and look one of the humans I told you about is here as well!” The troll that was probably Aradia introduced still holding onto Feferi why pointing at John.

“Stan why didn’t you tell me there were creators here! As well as children!” the secret brother said eyeing Mabel and her twin. “And some sort of large, hairless gopher?” he added uncertainly when he noticed Soos who just laughed and noted that he got that kind of reaction a lot.

Soos got that reaction because he was loveable and amazing but that was beside the point.

Stan rolled his eyes before answering his brother, “John and Feferi and the kids friends and the kids are your family poindexter. You know the ones you were keeping near that weird slime machine,” Stan explained as his brothers eyes widened and wait what?

“The heart and the mind aspects!” Stan’s brother said in amazement before rushing over to Mabel and shaking her hand, “Greetings, do kids still say greetings? I haven’t been in this universe for a really long time.” He admitted and Mabel couldn’t stop the slight smile working it’s way onto her face. Not that she would want to, smile were the best.

As they were shaking hands Mabel noticed the man had an extra finger causing her smile to widen even further “whoa, a six-fingered handshake? That’s a full finger friendlier than normal.” She said causing a laugh to come out from him.

“Ha! I like this kid. She’s weird.” He commented and if Mabel had thought that her smile couldn’t get any wider than she would have thought wrong. She thinks that she’s going to like Stan’s mysterious secret brother. She was glad that he was part of the family.

It was at that point that Dipper seemed to be shaken out of whatever weird daze he was in and seemed to be close to hyperventilating, Mabel and John exchanged a slight look as John started carefully making his way towards Dipper.

"I-I can't believe it. You're the author of the journals!" Dipper exclaimed grabbing what Mabel had decided to call him Uncle number two until he introduced himself attention away from Mabel and towards her twin.

"You've read my journals?"

It was a simple enough question but it was enough to get a surprised laugh out of John, "has he read your journals?" John has jokingly in a slight sarcastic voice causing Mabel and Feferi to try and repress a laugh themselves.

Dipper would rather read those journals than have human interaction.

"I haven't just read them; I've lived them!" Dipper said excitedly as he started walking in circles and Mabel could practically see all the thoughts whirling around in her brother’s head. "I've been waiting for so long to meet you, I-I don't know what to say I have so many question I-" Dipper rambled slightly before he started breathing heavily causing John to dart over there and try and calm him down.

"Oooooooooh I think I'm gonna throw up." Dipper muttered and Mabel took that as her own queue to come over and started patting his back reassuringly in case he actually had excited himself enough to throw up. "Hmmpf! No-no, false alarm. Hmmpf! Just gotta ride it out!"

As Mabel and John focused on calming Dipper down from kind of sort of meeting his hero, Uncle number two decided to speak up "Listen, there'll be time for introductions later. But first, tell me, Stan: are there any security breaches? Does anyone else know about this portal?" he asked causing Uncle Stan to simply shrug. He looked like he was still slightly upset about the punch earlier so Mabel made a mental note to check on him later.

"No, just us. Also maybe the entire secret organization that runs the town." Stan noted.

"The what?!"

The screen on a security camera; then seemed to show a bunch of agent looking guys running outside of the shack causing Uncle number two to sigh.

"Okay. It's all right. We've got a while before they find this room. We just need to lay low and think of a plan,” he said and Mabel took this as the perfect time to voice something she was sure they were all thinking about.

"Well, it looks like we're stuck down here for a while. Who wants to tell us their entire mysterious backstory?" she said because that was something she felt like they might need to know and uncle number two nodded.

"Yes, I have some questions about this myself, Stanley." Uncle number two said causing looks of confusion from the kids and Soos in the room.

"Stanley?" Dipper blurted out in confusion.

"But your name is Stanford." Mabel wondered out loud causing an insulted and startled look to appear on Uncle Number two's face.

"Wait, you took my name?! What have you been doing all these years, you knucklehead?!"

At this point Dipper's paranoid face suddenly appeared again "Yeah, Grunkle Stan, no more lies! You owe us some answers: What's the deal with this portal? Why did you keep this a secret?" Dipper questioned and Mabel hoped that her brother didn't intend for the questions to come out so harshly.

"I kind of want to know how this is connected to the society that's after me and everything..." John muttered kind of uncomfortably as if he was perfectly okay with not knowing anything about the bad guys.

"And what happened between you and your brother?" Mabel spoke up voicing what she felt was the most important aspect of this whole situation.

"I hope all this aligns exactly with my fanfic, Stan. If not, I will be very disappointed." Soos commented and Mabel found herself holding back a smile. Soos did work hard on his fanfics.

"Oh wow it looks like we're going to hear a story," Aradia noted thoughtfully but still excitedly and when the troll noticed that Mabel was looking at her gave Mabel the biggest grin she's ever seen.

 

\---

“I can’t believe we’re actually running from the law,” Dipper commented as Soos finished packing up the RV.

“Don’t look at it like that dude, it’s the ultimate road trip adventure!” Soos said excitedly as Dipper nervously looked back at the shack.

“Is it really all right to leave Uncle Ford at the shack by himself?” Dipper wondered allowed, he found himself wanting to reach for his journal for reassurance before remembering that he didn’t have it any more. Sure Uncle Ford let him read the other journals and they had been amazing but he kind of wished that he had been allowed to keep them.

At the very least he still had the book that the horror terrors gave him.

“Oh I’m sure Ford will be fine!” an excited voice suddenly came from behind him surprising him and causing him to let out a totally dignified and incredibly manly shriek. “That Wendy girl said that she would watch him and you’ve got that Pacifica girl is spying on that society to give him an edge up right?” Aradia’s voice reassured as Dipper calmed himself down and looked up at the troll who was the reason they decided to go on this road trip.

When Ford had shown up they had learned a lot, Stan and Ford told them a lot of things. About how neither of them were actually from Gravity Falls, Ford’s ruined science project, Stan’s life on the road and Ford being scouted by the All Seeing Eye and working for them with McGucket before learning that they couldn’t be trusted and trying to go against them.

They learnt that after Uncle Ford called Stan into town and they had the fight that knocked Ford through a portal into the median Ford had met a younger Aradia who had been expecting him from advice from the Horror Terrors. They learned the years Ford spent with Aradia who acted as his guide in the dream bubbles and furthest ring and then watched it collapse together before Mabel had done her thing to save the ghosts. 

They learned from Stan how he had found a younger Dipper and Mabel in the lab and the most jarring thing was that he and his sister were project to replicate ‘God Tiers’ he was the mind aspect while Mabel was the heart those aspects were the first ones chosen to be recreated because while Space and Time are the most physical concepts in the universe, Heart and Mind appear to be the two closest tied to the whole true cosmic self thing which seemed to be a key part of the aspects.

Since Ford wasn’t in the universe it was likely Dipper and his sister were the only ones they made but the fact that he had been grown in a lab and an evil society had probably been watching him and his sister grow up was kind of disconcerting but according to Aradia and Feferi all the players were also made in labs which wasn’t as reassuring as they probably wanted it to be and though he didn’t say anything Dipper got the feeling that John was uncomfortable with the idea of being grown in a lab but was just sort of rolling with it.

There was a lot to take in and they couldn’t just physically fight the Society like Aradia had made John, Mabel and Feferi do after the story but it did get the agents away from the shack.

Right now they needed to plan their next move and Aradia seemed to want to catch up with her ‘friends’ so they were leaving Gravity Falls to seek out the other Creators. Dipper didn’t know if he could fully trust the creators and he wasn’t just being paranoid because John agreed with him.

He was glad at least he could trust John to be on his side.

But they still had to try! Ford was staying to keep researching ways to take down the All Seeing Eye and Wendy was staying because she couldn’t just leave her dad for no reason and she was going to keep an eye on Ford and look out for Pacifica who was still acting as their spy.

Dipper hoped that those three would be okay together while the rest of them started running around looking for answers.

"Bow wow! Time to let the road dogs bark!" Grenda's voice suddenly screamed nocking Dipper out of his thoughts.

"That is us. We are the road dogs." Candy said excitedly as Mabel ran to her friends and John trailed behind her.

"Thanks for letting me bring Candy and Grenda along for our road trip, Grunkle Stan. I didn't want to leave them here, I wish we could take Pacifica as well but Uncle Ford said having a spy was too important to risk," Mabel said and Stan rolled his eyes at the mention of his brother.

"Hey the more the merrier. Just sign these non-disclosure agreements." Stan responded handing Candy and Grenda some papers, it really showed that they had been Mabel's friends for years by the fact that they weren't affected by stuff like this any more. "None of your parents are lawyers, right?" Stan asked the two girls and the three of them walked to the RV where Feferi was waiting by the door waving excitedly at them.

"You gonna be okay?" Dipper heard Mabel ask John who just gave her an uneasy smile.

"Yeah, I have to find out eventually about the Creators right?" John tried to reassure her but both Pines twins found themselves frowning. John was going to face the creators soon that had to be daunting. Even if Feferi and Aradia had turned out okay they couldn't really tell John about who he was, but they might be going to meet people who could and Dipper and Mabel knew the idea made John a little uncomfortable.

Before they could push it further Aradia suddenly grabbed John and started dragging him to the RV excitedly telling John how fun it would all be.

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a look before Mabel rushed after them and Dipper sighed. So they were really doing this, they were leaving Gravity Falls and searching for the Creators. Gods that created the Universe that stopped being myth years ago apparently.

This was going to be the weirdest road trip ever wasn't it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is very late but I am very tiered and I have no time or energy but I can promise you that I will at least try to write when I an. In other news Road Trip. The next intermission has been something I've been looking forward to so I hope I actually get it out. Also Pacifica, Wendy and Ford were a team I did not know I needed until I had to make it. Dipper and John now have Aradia to watch ghost harassers with so That's nice. Aradia is probably in her 20's in human years from her time with Ford in the furthest ring. They have a nice friendship with each other Aradia and Ford so Aradia has sort of addopted the Pines family.
> 
> I put all three perspectives because this was an inportant chapter.

**Author's Note:**

> My Chemical Romance - Planetary (GO!) is where I got the title since the song kind of reminds me a bit of this AU I've made. I'm not sure I'll be able to do the story justice but I'm looking forward to writing it, the chapters will be shorter than my other stories though so that my other stories don't get ignored.


End file.
